hello and welcome my name is kendra and
i've had the delight of working with my
incredible co-authors
sandeep kunar marion dork and wesley
bullet to create iobits a user-driven
situated and dedicated personal
informatics system
so what does this mean and why is it
interesting
traditional visualization research
focuses on supporting domain experts
with analytical tasks
on desktop computers our research
focuses on supporting regular people
with daily tasks in their everyday
environments
many of the available self-tracking
systems use similar approaches
automated data collection integration
into multi-purpose devices like smart
watches or mobile phones
and or centralized information displays
while automated data collection
approach reduces the burden on users it
also limits the type of data collected
to phenomenon that are easily detected
automated data collection is often rigid
which can lead to a conflict between
what the
user cares about and what the system is
capable of tracking
user driven or manual data collection on
the other hand allows users to frame the
question
decide what counts and capture
subjective and qualitative observations
incorporating self-tracking tools into
existing systems such as mobile phones
can provide an inexpensive approach to
collecting a wide range of data
however this approach forces
self-tracking tools to compete with
other applications for attention
logging also introduces a non-trivial
amount of interaction overhead while
engaged in an activity
a dedicated tracker with a distinct
physical presence and location
has the potential to remind people to
log and facilitate faster interactions
centralizing data consumptions on phones
or computers allows people to access the
data at will
often providing favorable conditions for
complex interactions and deeper
self-reflection
in contrast distributing personal data
into physical spaces where it is most
relevant
allows that information to be easily
considered in the moments of decision
making
in response to the common tropes of
self-tracking we explored a novel
approach to personal informatics
which examines how a user-driven
situated and dedicated tool might
support new kinds of self-tracking
behavior
with our prototype system iobits
some really interesting explorations of
embedding personal data into a variety
of environments has already occurred
including small e-paper displays that
are capable of continuously and
passively visualizing small bits of
information they receive wirelessly
as well as situated self-tracking
systems that invite more active
participation from the user
for example both the everyday calendar
and the citizen dialogue kits
both use button-based logging to
facilitate simple and
quick interactions we wanted to explore
the question how do we
id design and develop situated personal
informatics systems to support people
with their self-tracking process
in new and useful ways to start we ran a
series of design and ideation workshops
to examine the design space
we vary the materials locations and
prompts
using these workshops we considered what
our self-tracking system should look
like
three interesting clusters of designs
required simple timestamps
counts and binary toggles for instance a
toggle to show if an office occupant is
in
a time stamp to show when a jar of
pickles was started and two counts to
track how many coffees were consumed
from reusable versus paper cups
the data required by these examples
could be collected using a plethora of
sensors
or simple button presses this notion
inspired our simple user-driven and
generic data collection
with a better understanding of what our
situated self-tracking system would look
like
we ran our e-paper visualization
workshop which generated 40 designs
analyzing the sketches we clustered them
based on reoccurring design elements and
organized them to reflect emergent
design dimensions
we have identified five clusters the
first cluster
text visualizations which focus on
displaying a single component of the
data in plain text
often this results in displaying counts
averages or a single timestamp
token visualizations added a new token
for each button press
in our samples the tokens were typically
circles or squares and grouped into
categories or placed along a timeline
grid visualizations had an initial
structure that was filled in based on
the inputs
the initial structures were often grids
but some designs used an outline of a
specific image like a plant
resizable shaped visualizations use
button presses to grow a variety of
shapes
this included the traditional graph
shapes like the bars of a bar chart
as well as less traditional forms such
as the circles within a traffic light or
speech bubbles
visual ratio visualizations were
described using words that emphasized
the tension between two distinct parts
the pushing halves often consumed the
whole display and were either uniform
across the display to show a single
aggregate ratio
or had jagged edges to show how the
ratio changed over time
in addition to examining the clusters we
examined the ways the visualizations
differed
but for time's sake we won't go over
those
using our workshops as inspiration we
designed and built several generations
of prototypes
our prototype system combined is simple
user-driven data collection process
with a set of visualizations and a
self-contained and dedicated hardware
unit
these small battery operated devices can
be situated in a wide variety of
locations and support many tracking
tasks
each iobit includes a low-power wi-fi
enabled microcontroller
a rechargeable battery and an e-paper
display
users can log data using two input
buttons on the face of their device that
produce
time-stamped logs on a local server the
three buttons on the top act as system
controls to
undo create a new file and switch
between visualizations
the combination of a large battery with
a low power
display and microcontroller results in a
battery life that lasts at least three
weeks under typical use
they implemented a set of five
visualizations that the user can switch
between to see different aspects of
their data
as you can see four of the five
visualizations we implemented closely
follow from the design clusters we saw
during the e-paper visualization
workshop
with a notable exception being the
streak visualization
this was inspired by a discussion where
our participant was trying to design a
less judgmental daily habit tracker
once we had a prototype version we were
happy with we examined the impact iobits
made on participant cell tracking
we decided to do so via small scale
deployment of our system
we had six participants build and use
iobits for a period
ranging from four days to three weeks
one participant tracked their work-life
balance
to track their daily routines and three
tracked aspects of their hobbies
all the participants placed the iobits
on the desk nightstand or table
and five of the six participants used
the counts or ratio visualization
using the deployment workshops and our
own experience we derived a set of four
insights and observations
as well as a set of four questions
questions
to guide future research on the topic i
would like to highlight two of each for
you
simple generic tracker designs can
support a wide range of different
tracking tasks while also providing a
sense of privacy
and allowing the data to expire when no
longer relevant
every one of our participants across
both the e-paper visualization workshop
and our prototype deployment proposed
unique ideas for how to use their iobits
the wide range of proposed uses suggest
that these kinds of general purpose
trackers with task agnostic interfaces
could indeed enable a diverse set of
untapped uses for personal informatics
simple flexible personal informatics
tools can make it easier for users to
pose new questions and explore more
diverse and personal tracking topics
the tracking topics participants
proposed during our workshops were not
only
unique but they also tended to reflect
their particular goals interests and
personalities
some participants emphasized the way in
which personalized trackers could help
them align with their own identity and
ambitions rather than externally imposed
ones
our preliminary results suggest the
presence of a much more diverse
list of highly individualized personal
informatics use cases that are not
readily serviced by current tools
as such we see clear opportunities for
minimal multi-purpose tracking tools to
facilitate more personal casual and
idiosyncratic tracking topics
what input mechanisms best support low
burden nuance and
flexible data collection in situ
reconciling the desire for simplicity
with expressive power remains a
persistent challenge in interface design
and is particularly salient for tracking
tools which are intended to integrate
into everyday life
in our obits deployment participants
feelings about the simplicity of the
tractor fell into three categories
two enjoyed the simplicity of the device
noting that its constraints prompted
them to more carefully consider their
priorities
two were more ambivalent about the
benefits of the device's simplicity
but were still able to capture something
they had previously been interested in
tracking
and the last two found the device
limiting and wished it was capable of
tracking more nuanced
aspects of their lives what strategies
can be implemented to maintain privacy
and visibility when displaying personal
data in situ
trackers with always-on glanceable
displays accentuate issues of privacy
and visibility that merge frequently in
personal visualization literature
in our deployment participants regularly
speculated about how visitors in their
home might interact with iobits
and suggested several strategies to
maintain privacy from visitors
this included placing the trackers in
drawers lightweight triggers for
toggling stability on or off
or using more artistic abstract
visualizations they're difficult for
others to decode and not obvious data
representations
so to wrap up with this contribution we
explored the viability of an alternative
approach to self-tracking we aim to
develop simple tools that empower people
to pose and answer data-driven questions
about themselves
while iobits are straightforward
technical device they run contrary to
many self-tracking tropes
dedicated situated and user-driven
trackers can bring focus to personal
tracking tasks and provide unique
opportunities to prompt reflection while
engaged in those tasks
our work shows the promise of these
types of tracking devices and highlights
opportunity for future research
thank you for listening