I/O Bits: User-Driven, Situated, and Dedicated Self-Tracking

by | Jun 1, 2021 | Research Publications

Author(s):

  • Kendra A. Wannamaker
  • Sandeep Zechariah
  • George Kollannur
  • Marian Dörk
  • Wesley Willett

Abstract:

We present I/O Bits, a prototype personal informatics system that explores the potential for user-driven and situated self-tracking. With simple tactile inputs and small e-paper visualizations, I/O Bits are dedicated physical devices that allow individuals to track and visualize different kinds of personal activities in-situ. This is in contrast to most self-tracking systems, which automate data collection, centralize information displays, or integrate into multi-purpose devices like smartwatches or mobile phones. We report findings from an e-paper visualization workshop and a prototype deployment where participants constructed their own I/O Bits and used them to track a range of personal data. Based on these experiences, we contribute insights and opportunities for situated and user-driven personal informatics.

Documentation:

https://doi.org/10.1145/3461778.3462138

References:
  1. Phil Adams, Elizabeth L. Murnane, Michael Elfenbein, Elaine Wethington, and Geri Gay. 2017. Supporting the Self-Management of Chronic Pain Conditions with Tailored Momentary Self-Assessments. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1065–1077. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025832 event-place: Denver, Colorado, USA.
  2. Phil Adams, Mashfiqui Rabbi, Tauhidur Rahman, Mark Matthews, Amy Voida, Geri Gay, Tanzeem Choudhury, and Stephen Voida. 2014. Towards Personal Stress Informatics: Comparing Minimally Invasive Techniques for Measuring Daily Stress in the Wild. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare(PervasiveHealth ’14). ICST (Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering), ICST, Brussels, Belgium, Belgium, 72–79. https://doi.org/10.4108/icst.pervasivehealth.2014.254959 event-place: Oldenburg, Germany.
  3. Amid Ayobi, Paul Marshall, and Anna L. Cox. 2020. Trackly: A Customisable and Pictorial Self-Tracking App to Support Agency in Multiple Sclerosis Self-Care. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376809
  4. Amid Ayobi, Tobias Sonne, Paul Marshall, and Anna L. Cox. 2018. Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 28:1–28:14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173602 event-place: Montreal QC, Canada.
  5. Nathalie Bressa, Kendra Wannamaker, Henrik Korsgaard, Wesley Willett, and Jo Vermeulen. 2019. Sketching and Ideation Activities for Situated Visualization Design. In Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference(DIS ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322326
  6. E. K. Choe, S. Abdullah, M. Rabbi, E. Thomaz, D. A. Epstein, F. Cordeiro, M. Kay, G. D. Abowd, T. Choudhury, J. Fogarty, B. Lee, M. Matthews, and J. A. Kientz. 2017. Semi-Automated Tracking: A Balanced Approach for Self-Monitoring Applications. IEEE Pervasive Computing 16, 1 (Jan. 2017), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2017.18
  7. Eun Kyoung Choe, Bongshin Lee, Matthew Kay, Wanda Pratt, and Julie A. Kientz. 2015. SleepTight: Low-burden, Self-monitoring Technology for Capturing and Reflecting on Sleep Behaviors. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 121–132. https://doi.org/10.1145/2750858.2804266 event-place: Osaka, Japan.
  8. Eun Kyoung Choe, Nicole B. Lee, Bongshin Lee, Wanda Pratt, and Julie A. Kientz. 2014. Understanding Quantified-selfers’ Practices in Collecting and Exploring Personal Data. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1143–1152. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557372 event-place: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
  9. Sandy Claes, Jorgos Coenen, and Andrew Vande Moere. 2018. Conveying a Civic Issue Through Data via Spatially Distributed Public Visualization and Polling Displays. In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction(NordiCHI ’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 597–608. https://doi.org/10.1145/3240167.3240206 event-place: Oslo, Norway.
  10. Jorgos Coenen, Maarten Houben, and Andrew Vande Moere. 2019. Citizen Dialogue Kit: Public Polling and Data Visualization Displays for Bottom-Up Citizen Participation. In Companion Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019 Companion(DIS ’19 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3325160
  11. Felicia Cordeiro, Daniel A. Epstein, Edison Thomaz, Elizabeth Bales, Arvind K. Jagannathan, Gregory D. Abowd, and James Fogarty. 2015. Barriers and Negative Nudges: Exploring Challenges in Food Journaling. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1159–1162. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702155 event-place: Seoul, Republic of Korea.
  12. Kate Crawford, Jessa Lingel, and Tero Karppi. 2015. Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device. European Journal of Cultural Studies 18, 4-5 (Aug. 2015), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549415584857
  13. Teresa Denefleh, Arne Berger, Albrecht Kurze, Andreas Bischof, and Christopher Frauenberger. 2019. Sensorstation: Exploring Simple Sensor Data in the Context of a Shared Apartment. In Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference(DIS ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 683–695. https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322309
  14. Daniel A. Epstein, Monica Caraway, Chuck Johnston, An Ping, James Fogarty, and Sean A. Munson. 2016. Beyond Abandonment to Next Steps: Understanding and Designing for Life After Personal Informatics Tool Use. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1109–1113. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858045 event-place: San Jose, California, USA.
  15. Daniel A. Epstein, Nicole B. Lee, Jennifer H. Kang, Elena Agapie, Jessica Schroeder, Laura R. Pina, James Fogarty, Julie A. Kientz, and Sean Munson. 2017. Examining Menstrual Tracking to Inform the Design of Personal Informatics Tools. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6876–6888. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025635 event-place: Denver, Colorado, USA.
  16. Daniel A. Epstein, An Ping, James Fogarty, and Sean A. Munson. 2015. A Lived Informatics Model of Personal Informatics. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 731–742. https://doi.org/10.1145/2750858.2804250 event-place: Osaka, Japan.
  17. Maria Angela Ferrario, Will Simm, Adrian Gradinar, Stephen Forshaw, Marcia Tavares Smith, Thomas Lee, Ian Smith, and Jon Whittle. 2017. Computing and Mental Health: Intentionality and Reflection at the Click of a Button. In Proceedings of the 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare(PervasiveHealth ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3154862.3154877 event-place: Barcelona, Spain.
  18. Maliheh Ghajargar and Mikael Wiberg. 2018. Thinking with Interactive Artifacts: Reflection as a Concept in Design Outcomes. Design Issues 34, 2 (2018), 48–63. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00485 Publisher: MIT Press.
  19. Tobias Grosse-Puppendahl, Steve Hodges, Nicholas Chen, John Helmes, Stuart Taylor, James Scott, Josh Fromm, and David Sweeney. 2016. Exploring the Design Space for Energy-Harvesting Situated Displays. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology(UIST ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 41–48. https://doi.org/10.1145/2984511.2984513 event-place: Tokyo, Japan.
  20. Peter Gyory, Clement Zheng, Daniel Leithinger, and Ellen Yi-Luen Do. 2019. HOT SWAP: Probing Embodied Game Interfaces With Reconfigurable Controllers. In Companion Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019 Companion – DIS ’19 Companion. ACM Press, San Diego, CA, USA, 183–187. https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3323901
  21. Daniel Harrison, Paul Marshall, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze, and Jon Bird. 2015. Activity Tracking: Barriers, Workarounds and Customisation. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 617–621. https://doi.org/10.1145/2750858.2805832 event-place: Osaka, Japan.
  22. Steven Houben, Connie Golsteijn, Sarah Gallacher, Rose Johnson, Saskia Bakker, Nicolai Marquardt, Licia Capra, and Yvonne Rogers. 2016. Physikit: Data Engagement Through Physical Ambient Visualizations in the Home. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1608–1619. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858059
  23. D. Huang, M. Tory, B. Adriel Aseniero, L. Bartram, S. Bateman, S. Carpendale, A. Tang, and R. Woodbury. 2015. Personal Visualization and Personal Visual Analytics. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 21, 3 (March 2015), 420–433. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2014.2359887
  24. Joseph Jofish Kaye, Mary McCuistion, Rebecca Gulotta, and David Shamma. 2014. Money talks: Tracking personal finances. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings (April 2014). https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2556975
  25. Nam Wook Kim, Hyejin Im, Nathalie Henry Riche, Alicia Wang, Krzysztof Gajos, and Hanspeter Pfister. 2019. DataSelfie: Empowering People to Design Personalized Visuals to Represent Their Data. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’19. ACM Press, Glasgow, Scotland Uk, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300309
  26. Young-Ho Kim, Jae Ho Jeon, Bongshin Lee, Eun Kyoung Choe, and Jinwook Seo. 2017. OmniTrack: A Flexible Self-Tracking Approach Leveraging Semi-Automated Tracking. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 1, 3 (Sept. 2017), 67:1–67:28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3130930
  27. Amanda Lazar, Christian Koehler, Joshua Tanenbaum, and David H. Nguyen. 2015. Why We Use and Abandon Smart Devices. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 635–646. https://doi.org/10.1145/2750858.2804288 event-place: Osaka, Japan.
  28. David Ledo, Fraser Anderson, Ryan Schmidt, Lora Oehlberg, Saul Greenberg, and Tovi Grossman. 2017. Pineal: Bringing Passive Objects to Life with Embedded Mobile Devices. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Denver, Colorado, USA) (CHI ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2583–2593. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025652
  29. Roxanne Leitão. 2019. Anticipating Smart Home Security and Privacy Threats with Survivors of Intimate Partner Abuse. In Proceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference(DIS ’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 527–539. https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3322366 event-place: San Diego, CA, USA.
  30. Ian Li, Anind Dey, and Jodi Forlizzi. 2010. A Stage-based Model of Personal Informatics Systems. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 557–566. https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753409 event-place: Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
  31. Ian Li, Anind Dey, Jodi Forlizzi, Kristina Höök, and Yevgeniy Medynskiy. 2011. Personal Informatics and HCI: Design, Theory, and Social Implications. In CHI ’11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI EA ’11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2417–2420. https://doi.org/10.1145/1979742.1979573 event-place: Vancouver, BC, Canada.
  32. Deborah Lupton. 2015. Quantified sex: a critical analysis of sexual and reproductive self-tracking using apps. Culture, Health & Sexuality 17, 4 (April 2015), 440–453. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2014.920528
  33. Sampada Marathe and S. Shyam Sundar. 2011. What drives customization? control or identity?. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 781–790. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979056
  34. Gina Neff and Dawn Nafus. 2016. Self-Tracking. MIT Press. Google-Books-ID: gWyMDAAAQBAJ.
  35. Doenja Oogjes, William Odom, and Pete Fung. 2018. Designing for an other Home: Expanding and Speculating on Different Forms of Domestic Life. In Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference(DIS ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 313–326. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196810
  36. Juan Pablo, Piyum Fernando, Priyashri Sridhar, Anusha Withana, Suranga Nanayakkara, Jurgen Steimle, and Pattie Maes. 2016. PostBits: using contextual locations for embedding cloud information in the home. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 20, 6 (Nov. 2016), 1001–1014. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-016-0967-z
  37. Johnny Rodgers and Lyn Bartram. 2011. Exploring Ambient and Artistic Visualization for Residential Energy Use Feedback. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 17, 12(2011), 2489–2497.
  38. John Rooksby, Mattias Rost, Alistair Morrison, and Matthew Chalmers. 2014. Personal Tracking As Lived Informatics. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1163–1172. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557039 event-place: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
  39. Kim Sauvé, Steven Houben, Nicolai Marquardt, Saskia Bakker, Bart Hengeveld, Sarah Gallacher, and Yvonne Rogers. 2017. LOOP: A Physical Artifact to Facilitate Seamless Interaction with Personal Data in Everyday Life. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) (DIS ’17 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 285–288. https://doi.org/10.1145/3064857.3079175
  40. Patrick C. Shih, Kyungsik Han, Erika Shehan Poole, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M. Carroll. 2015. Use and Adoption Challenges of Wearable Activity Trackers. (March 2015). https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/73649
  41. Will Simm, Maria Angela Ferrario, Adrian Gradinar, Marcia Tavares Smith, Stephen Forshaw, Ian Smith, and Jon Whittle. 2016. Anxiety and Autism: Towards Personalized Digital Health. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(CHI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1270–1281. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858259
  42. S. S. Stevens. 1946. On the Theory of Scales of Measurement. Science, New Series 103, 2684 (1946), 677–680. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1671815
  43. Simon Stusak, Aurélien Tabard, Franziska Sauka, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Andreas Butz. 2014. Activity Sculptures: Exploring the Impact of Physical Visualizations on Running Activity. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics 20, 12 (Dec. 2014), 2201–2210. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2014.2352953
  44. Melanie Swan. 2013. The Quantified Self: Fundamental Disruption in Big Data Science and Biological Discovery. Big Data 1 (June 2013), 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2012.0002
  45. Alice Thudt, Uta Hinrichs, Samuel Huron, and Sheelagh Carpendale. 2018. Self-Reflection and Personal Physicalization Construction. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal QC, Canada) (CHI ’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 154, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173728
  46. Julio Vega, Sam Couth, Ellen Poliakoff, Sonja Kotz, Matthew Sullivan, Caroline Jay, Markel Vigo, and Simon Harper. 2018. Back to Analogue: Self-Reporting for Parkinson’s Disease. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173648
  47. W. Willett, Y. Jansen, and P. Dragicevic. 2017. Embedded Data Representations. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 23, 1 (Jan. 2017), 461–470. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2016.2598608
  48. Rayoung Yang, Eunice Shin, Mark W. Newman, and Mark S. Ackerman. 2015. When Fitness Trackers Don’T ’Fit’: End-user Difficulties in the Assessment of Personal Tracking Device Accuracy. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing(UbiComp ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 623–634. https://doi.org/10.1145/2750858.2804269 event-place: Osaka, Japan.