CIID Final Project: Design challenge

LIFE IS AN ACT OF BALANCE an exploration into how personal informatics can facilitate behaviour change and enable people to feel like they have a more balanced life

Eilidh DicksonScottishProduct/Service Design

Advisor: Heather Martin

Eilidh Dickson, CIID/DKDS Pilot Year, 9th June 2009

I AM INTERESTED IN AND INSPIRED BY....

For my final project I am focusing on how you give people the ability to change elements of their

behaviour, in order for them to feel like they have a balanced life (subjective to the individual)

Either by allowing them to become more aware and learn about their lifestyle habits, so they can

make behavioural changes themselves or by providing them with tools or services that will

actively help them make the changes to their lifestyle.

I am especially interested to see if the emerging field of Personal Informatics can play a role in

helping people achieve this. If you could track intangible information about your day-to-day

actions would it trigger people to change their behaviour. I believe this new realm has huge

potential to redefine the way in which we interact with the physical world and gain insights about

our actions that make up our daily routines. I am excited that this greater awareness has the

potential to help us adjust and moderate our behaviour in a number of positive ways.

Currently in our everyday lives we are commonly engulfed in specific contexts, which makes it

difficult to see the bigger picture. I am curious to understand if personal informatics can enable

people to pinpoint areas of their life that bring them personal fulfillment and support them to

experience this more often.

An area I see as an underlying thread throughout the project is addressing the issue of ‘time

poverty’ People need to feel connected to people, places they live, even the food they eat.

Traditionally this was much easier to achieve, as family all lived together, you new all your

relatives and you new that your food had come from your back garden. These connections have

been weakened because of a fast pace of life. The advance of new labour saving technologies has

allowed us to achieve more in a shorter space of time, yet instead of using the time we save to

‘slow’ down we are prone to making ourselves even busier.


RELATED PROJECTS AND REFERENCES

At the very beginning of our final project I collected some examples around personal informat-

ics and mapped them out, purely to understand what was already available. Below are some of

the more successful and interesting ideas I collected. They all focus on very specific areas of an

individuals life that they can help them monitor and control.

Nike +

Nike + is one of the most commercial and well discussed personal informatics tools currently

available. The system is made up of a small chip that you insert in your running shoes, combined

with a personal online service. The tangible UI which is imbedded in the sole of your shoes

communicates with your Apple iPod (which has pre-loaded software) feeding it with information

about your running to help you track your training regime. The system essentially becomes a

digital personal trainer. After you have completed your training session you can plug your iPod

into your computer and log into your personal Nike + account. What I think has greatly

contributed to the success of the Nike + system is that even though you have a personal account

you are part of a community. Your web based account allows you to provide training tips and

advice to other people and recommend good running routes. By being part of community I really

believe that it makes peoples actions feel more valued.


Wattson

The Wattson is a new kind of home appliance that is networked to a sensor attached to your

home’s electric meter box. Using colours and numbers, the Wattson device displays your energy

consumption and stores it on an online database making it easy for you to manage your

electricity usage and therefore save money. Not only is the system hugely informative and

practical… the device also looks great.

Google Power Meter

How much does it cost to leave your TV on all day? Which uses more power every month — your

dishwasher or your washing machine? Is your household more or less energy efficient than

similar homes in your neighborhood? These are some of the questions you will be able to answer

with a new prototype Google are experimenting with. Google power meter helps you become

more energy efficient and save money by pinpointing what devices are using specific amounts of

energy. You can even have friendly competition between your friends and neighbours.

Last Fm

Is an online web tool that monitors your music habits by connecting to your itunes or other

media software. Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like.

It suggests friends based on your music tastes and recommends songs from their music

collections and yours too.


Dopplr

Dopplr is an online tool used to track your traveling habits. Dopplr members can share personal

and business travel plans privately with their networks, and exchange tips on places to stay, eat

and explore in cities around the world. Each year you get an annual review of all your traveling,

including showing when your travel plans have over lapped with friends and how much impact

you are having on the environment. What I really like about dopplr is the flexibility it provides,

you can update your profile on your personal profile, through your mobile or on other social

networking sites, and you can sync it all to you iCAL or outlook calendar on your computer. It

appears to be very seamless.

References

Johnny Holland, The Power of Personal Infomatics

http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/04/the-power-of-personal-informatics/

Addressing the issue of ‘time poverty’

http://www.slowmovement.com/

Tools for knowing more about your body and mind

http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/


Frog Design on Personal Informatics

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/greener-gadgets-saving-the-worldone-meter-at-a-time.

html

Personal Informatics, Matt Jones & Tom Coates

http://www.slideshare.net/blackbeltjones/polite-pertinent-and-pretty-designing-for-the-newwave-

of-personal-informatics-493301

Behaviour is our Medium, Robert Fabricant (Frog Design)

http://www.slideshare.net/frogdesign/interaction-design-is-not-about-computing-

technology?type=presentation

TED talk on meta data

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6t1JxElEVw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fi

nbox%2F%3Fref%3Dmb&feature=player_embedded

Pervasive Design article

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009745.html

MY STARTING POINT

My starting point was a curiosity to investigate how design can be used to change people’s

behaviour especially within the context of life balance. This interest was very much

inspired by our TUI project at CIID that focused on using RFID technology to create an

awareness of the environmental impact caused by certain food products transportation. On

completion of this project I further investigated it by writing an article on personal Informatics

for an online Interaction Design magazine called Johnny Holland. During this I found out that

there are currently a number of personal informatics tools on the market to help people balance

their lives, mainly focusing around health, finances and energy consumption. Some of these have

been a great success while others are just a waste of time. When looking at these examples I was

disappointed by the lack of imagination that was driving this emphasis on data displays and was

very skeptical that any bar chart on a screen would actually motivate anyone to change his or

her behaviour. I was interested in how to trigger an emotional experience to motivate behavioural

change and find a more specialized area that could be addressed by personal informatics to help

people feel more balanced.


MY EXPLORATIONS

After conducting some initial desk research on personal informatics and existing tools to help

people balance their lives, the majority of my time was spent on planning (1 week) conducting

(1 week) and analyzing user research (1 week)

Objective

My objective for my user research was to gain an understanding of what it means for people to

live a balanced life, what are people’s personal values they need to meet to feel comfortable in

their lifestyle, how does this change depending on what stage of their life they are at and do they

use any tools or strategies to achieve this.

To understand how people’s values change at different stages of their lives I conducted research

with three different user groups, Students, couples that were working and families. Within these

categories there were also some extreme users that included an avid sportsman, someone with

diabetes and two people that were away from home frequently due to work travel. I was

interested in hearing if people who had more extreme lifestyles had different strategies to keep

themselves feeling in control.

Mapping Research Candidates

STUDENT

WORKING

LIVING ALONE LIVING WITH PARTNER/HUSBAND

EXTREME USER

HAS CHILDREN

PERNILLEERIC

MARTIN

JON

LAURA

RUNE

AMANDA

RUNE. P

FRANCESSCA

KATE

KRISTIAN

DAVID


Reasearch Candidates

Amanda bligh David Kearford Eric Stevenson

Francessca Mustaffi Jon Wettersen Kate Pilkington

Kristian Kørrup Martin Wøldik

Pernille Christoffersen Rune Bottzauw Rune Pittmer

Laura ceriol


Research Planning

Out of 12 people I conducted nine 2 hour research sessions in person, 2 Skype interviews to the

US and one remote experiment in Italy. During the research sessions I used a number of

reflection tools I had designed to help facilitate the session and provoke conversation. I also

had a set of questions on more specific areas, that I adapted depending on how the discussion

evolved. These questions covered areas such as typical daily routines and habits, enjoyable parts

of their day, things they don’t have time to achieve, how they manage their time to meet all their

priorities, use of labour saving technology, triggers that make them to feel stressed, how they

deal with conflicts in their time, what their ‘feel good’ activities are and how their priorities have

changed as their responsibilities have.

Conducting Research

I used a Card sorting activity where i got people to chose from a list of things they do either on a

daily, weekly or random basis. This was used as a warm up activity to get people starting to think

about what they do prioritize in daily life. It was a great conversation starter as you could

question them on their answers.


I also designed a mapping tool to get people to think about more specific values they need to

achieve to feel in control and what really brings them meaning in life. This exercise was very

valuable as it forced people to take a moment and reflect on what was really important to them.

People found the exercise difficult, especially when they started to realize that they were

achieving very few of the things that were important and a priority to them. Although the task

was challenging almost everyone I interviewed found it beneficial to have a moment of reflection

for themselves where they could rethink what their priorities were.

During my research a few people also kept a diary so i could gain insight into their routines,

sleeping and eating habits. After completing the diary I questioned them if they gained any value

from writing in it each day. People responded with saying that they felt like they wanted to be

more productive throughout their day so they had something positive and interesting to write in

it. This shows that actively logging your activities can lead to increased motivation to do well.


During some of the interview sessions I would get people to draw an emotional time line map of

a certain period of time that they decided on. The peaks in the diagram are when they are

feeling out of balance. This allowed me to see that periods of in balance are often due to a

change or transition in their lifestyle. This often included moving to a new city, leaving home or

starting a new job. Although these are not negative situations to be in, the uncertainty and the

anxiety of starting something new can make people feel out of balance.

The remote exercise in Italy involved an extreme user (Laura, who is rarely at home due to work

related travel) keeping a detailed diary for one week. In this she recorded her day-to-day

activities and routines, including eating and sleeping habits. I also asked her to reflect on how

she felt throughout the day and in the moment while she was doing certain tasks. If anything

made her feel stressed she was to record it and the same goes for if she was happy. As well as

the written diary she also took photographs of the following:

1. Things that you do on a regular basis that make you feel comfortable and content.

2. Any tools or strategies that help you meet your priorities.

3. Things that you make you feel uncomfortable or unbalance in your life.

The result of this exercise was very detailed and rich information with a number of key insights to

what it is like when you are continually on the move.

Research Analysis

On completion of my user research I created character boards for each person, writing down key

quotes and observations from their session. At this point I then filtered the information again and

selected the most intriguing and surprising quotes from each respondent that I did not

anticipate. Within these insights three underlying themes were formed. These were

Communication with Family and Friends, Food and Eating Habits and Personal Prioritising and

Planning.


Interview notes typed up and organised!

One of my character boards

Mapping out all my insights


Understanding what each quote means

Creating How might we statements

Voting on the most interesting insights


Within each of these themes I used the IDEO method of asking what does each insight mean, and

then writing “How might we statements” for them all. At this point there were still a number of

areas I could chose to develop, but I decided to focus on personal prioritizing as this is where I

felt most challenged, excited and saw potential to apply personal informatics to. Some of the key

insights in this theme were:

“I transfer work trips to our calendar at home, but only a few weeks before, mainly so Mas

[husband] can’t see what’s ahead of him!”

People only really use a ‘public’ calendar for really important events that are necessary to

share.

“I don’t currently write in a diary as I imagine someone reading it, so I won’t put anything

personal in it…….I like the approach of this diary, I actually find that I want to be more productive

just so u can write something positive in it, kind of indirect motivation”

Having to actively record you activities allows you to reflect and become motivated to do well.

“I would love to be able to schedule time for reading…….but it sounds kind of dorky….so I would

love to be able to track some of these things I would like to be able to do without having to

actually track it”

People feel silly scheduling ‘me time’ but are interested to understand what they spend their

time on and when.

“I keep a personal to-do list, I prioritise everything, so when I have been neglecting something I

move it up the list, I keep it on my desktop so I can always see it”

People need to have a constant reminder of what it important to do otherwise they will ignore

it.

“Hobbies are great when they are built into your life, I love it, but when you don’t do it for a while

you forget how much you enjoy it until you do it again”

People easily forget how important something is and how much they enjoy it when they stop

doing it.

“Prioritizing is difficult, it would be good to have ground rules, or a rule of thumb to follow”

People like to be guided in some when it comes to making personal decisions.


DESIGN CHALLENGE

Due to an increased pace of life and personal competition with ones self to become ‘someone

better’ people are continually busy, going from one task to the next. This has been heightened

by a more prominent use of technology in our lives, which has resulted in lifestyle barriers that

used to exist been broken; people can now work anywhere, contact anyone at a given time and

achieve much more on the move. The result of having this fast pace of life is that people become

absorbed in ‘achieving more’ and detached from what their day-to-day life looks like and what

brings them a real sense of enjoyment. Within their busy lives people find it hard to prioritize

when making decisions in their own life and would often like to be guided in some way. Some

people use diaries and calendars to schedule (make time for) ‘practical appointments’ but very

rarely for personal activities, yet they are interested to understand what they spend their time

on, especially for things they enjoy doing, but rarely have time to do. In order for people to have

a balanced life on a bigger scale they have to first reconnect to themselves, focusing on what

they need to be content rather than everything that is possible.

How might we create a flexible and customizable platform that will help people to reconnect to

themselves, enabling them to prioritize in their lives by keeping track of and reminding them

of past experiences that they can then use as a reference point to make decisions?

Other Questions to probe for brainstorming

-How might we create a greater awareness of elements of our lives that bring us enjoyment, and

how much time we actually spend on these activities.

-How might we compare what your day actually looks like with what you would ideally like it to

be.

-How can the act of recording these experiences be seamlessly integrated into your lifestyle.

-How might we see what our priorities are in ‘real time’ and edit them as they change.

-How might we use forms of multimedia in a creative way to record and reflect on ‘our stories’

-How might we track success and failure to learn from it.

-How might we create a experience model that people will want to invest time in.


Concerns

At this stage my main concern is defining what experiences people should actually record.

Should there be specific types of experiences they record depending on the feeling they get from

it, should they get to specify them themselves, or decide on important categories to follow. When

researching on Personal Coaching the main areas they focus on are (i) Developing habits for a

less stressful life (ii) Maneuvering through life transitions (iii) Meeting goals and aspirations

(iv) Enhancing quality of communication and relationships. I think these areas are all interesting

and looking at prioritizing under umbrella themes could be something to investigate.

Potential User Group

From my user research I found that the main reason for people to feel out of balance was after

a significant transition in their lifestyle. For some people this was moving to another country or

starting their own company, for others it was having a child or going from being a student to

having their first job. Although these periods of people’s lives are not necessarily negative they

can be unsettling and often daunting, and it is during these periods of time you can forget or

ignore what your personal priorities really are. I am finding it is hard to decide on a specific user

group as I do not want to limit my idea generation, but at the same time I know it is better to be

able to create a more focused design challenge. As an initial thought I think focusing on people

that have moved away from their native country could very be interesting. When you are in your

own culture, it is often the case that it helps you define your lifestyle and the decisions you make,

ranging from how many hours of work you do to the type of food you eat. Where as when you

move to a new country you have a new level of freedom that can often be harder to manage.

Date post:	06-May-2015
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