We describe the design, implementation and deployment of Photobox, a domestic technology that prints four or five randomly selected photos from the owner's Flickr collection at random intervals each month. We deployed Photobox in three homes for fourteen months, to explore how the slow pace at which it operates could support experiences of anticipation and re-visitation of the past. Findings reveal changes in attitude toward the device, from frustration to eventual acceptance. Participants drew on the photos to reflect on past life events and reactions indicated a renewed interest for their Flickr collection. Photobox also provoked reflection on technology in and around the home. These findings suggest several opportunities, such as designing for anticipation, better supporting reflection on the past, and, more generally, expanding the slow technology research program within the HCI community.

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Designing for slowness, anticipation and re-visitation: a long term field study of the photobox

This essay contributes a meta-scientific account of human-computer interaction (HCI) research as problem-solving. We build on the philosophy of Larry Laudan, who develops problem and solution as the foundational concepts of science. We argue that most HCI research is about three main types of problem: empirical, conceptual, and constructive. We elaborate upon Laudan's concept of problem-solving capacity as a universal criterion for determining the progress of solutions (outcomes): Instead of asking whether research is 'valid' or follows the 'right' approach, it urges us to ask how its solutions advance our capacity to solve important problems in human use of computers. This offers a rich, generative, and 'discipline-free' view of HCI and resolves some existing debates about what HCI is or should be. It may also help unify efforts across nominally disparate traditions in empirical research, theory, design, and engineering.

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HCI Research as Problem-Solving

People’s encounters and entanglements with the personal digital data that they generate is a new and compelling area of research interest in this age of the ascendancy of digital data. Masses of pe...

Feeling your data: touch and making sense of personal digital data

In this report, we organize and reflect on recent advances and challenges in the field of sports data visualization. The exponentially-growing body of visualization research based on sports data is a prime indication of the importance and timeliness of this report. Sports data visualization research encompasses the breadth of visualization tasks and goals: exploring the design of new visualization techniques; adapting existing visualizations to a novel domain; and conducting design studies and evaluations in close collaboration with experts, including practitioners, enthusiasts, and journalists. Frequently this research has impact beyond sports in both academia and in industry because it is i) grounded in realistic, highly heterogeneous data, ii) applied to real-world problems, and iii) designed in close collaboration with domain experts. In this report, we analyze current research contributions through the lens of three categories of sports data: box score data (data containing statistical summaries of a sport event such as a game), tracking data (data about in-game actions and trajectories), and meta-data (data about the sport and its participants but not necessarily a given game). We conclude this report with a high-level discussion of sports visualization research informed by our analysis—identifying critical research gaps and valuable opportunities for the visualization community. More information is available at the STAR’s website: https://sportsdataviz.github.io/.

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State of the Art of Sports Data Visualization

Background: Although many smartphone apps and wearables have been designed to improve physical activity, their rapidly evolving nature and complexity present challenges for evaluating their impact. Traditional methodologies, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), can be slow. To keep pace with rapid technological development, evaluations of mobile health technologies must be efficient. Rapid alternative research designs have been proposed, and efficient in-app data collection methods, including in-device sensors and device-generated logs, are available. Along with effectiveness, it is important to measure engagement (ie, users’ interaction and usage behavior) and acceptability (ie, users’ subjective perceptions and experiences) to help explain how and why apps and wearables work.

Objectives: This study aimed to (1) explore the extent to which evaluations of physical activity apps and wearables: employ rapid research designs; assess engagement, acceptability, as well as effectiveness; use efficient data collection methods; and (2) describe which dimensions of engagement and acceptability are assessed.

Method: An interdisciplinary scoping review using 8 databases from health and computing sciences. Included studies measured physical activity, and evaluated physical activity apps or wearables that provided sensor-based feedback. Results were analyzed using descriptive numerical summaries, chi-square testing, and qualitative thematic analysis.

Results: A total of 1829 abstracts were screened, and 858 articles read in full. Of 111 included studies, 61 (55.0%) were published between 2015 and 2017. Most (55.0%, 61/111) were RCTs, and only 2 studies (1.8%) used rapid research designs: 1 single-case design and 1 multiphase optimization strategy. Other research designs included 23 (22.5%) repeated measures designs, 11 (9.9%) nonrandomized group designs, 10 (9.0%) case studies, and 4 (3.6%) observational studies. Less than one-third of the studies (32.0%, 35/111) investigated effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability together. To measure physical activity, most studies (90.1%, 101/111) employed sensors (either in-device [67.6%, 75/111] or external [23.4%, 26/111]). RCTs were more likely to employ external sensors (accelerometers: P=.005). Studies that assessed engagement (52.3%, 58/111) mostly used device-generated logs (91%, 53/58) to measure the frequency, depth, and length of engagement. Studies that assessed acceptability (57.7%, 64/111) most often used questionnaires (64%, 42/64) and/or qualitative methods (53%, 34/64) to explore appreciation, perceived effectiveness and usefulness, satisfaction, intention to continue use, and social acceptability. Some studies (14.4%, 16/111) assessed dimensions more closely related to usability (ie, burden of sensor wear and use, interface complexity, and perceived technical performance).

Conclusions: The rapid increase of research into the impact of physical activity apps and wearables means that evaluation guidelines are urgently needed to promote efficiency through the use of rapid research designs, in-device sensors and user-logs to assess effectiveness, engagement, and acceptability. Screening articles was time-consuming because reporting across health and computing sciences lacked standardization. Reporting guidelines are therefore needed to facilitate the synthesis of evidence across disciplines.

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Evaluating the Impact of Physical Activity Apps and Wearables: Interdisciplinary Review

Despite technological improvements in commercial activity trackers, little attention has been given to their emotional, social, or fashion-related qualities, such as their visual aesthetics and their relationship to self-expression and social connection. As an alternative integrated approach incorporating HCI, fashion, and product design, our project made use of the characteristics of patina to improve activity trackers as fashionable wearables. We developed the Patina Engraving System, which engraves patina-like patterns on an activity tracker according to a user's activity logs. Using a piercing technique, the patina of activity logs has been made abstract, visually rich, gradually emerging, and historically accumulated. During the field trial, we found that the patina motivated the participants to increase exercises for engraving aesthetic patinas. A tracker with patina triggered spontaneous social interactions in face-to-face situations. The participants also cherished the trackers that held their own history. Based on the field trial, we discuss design implications for utilizing patina in designing future fashionable technologies.

Patina Engraver: Visualizing Activity Logs as Patina in Fashionable Trackers

People worldwide are increasingly acquiring collections of virtual possessions. While virtual possessions have become ubiquitous, little work exists on how people value and form attachments to these things. To investigate, we conducted a study with 48 young adults from South Korea, Spain and the United States. The study probed on participants' perceived value of their virtual possessions as compared to their material things, and the comparative similarities and differences across cultures. Findings show that young adults live in unfinished spaces and that they often experience a sense of fragmentation when trying to integrate their virtual possessions into their lives. These findings point to several design opportunities, such as tools for life story-oriented archiving, and insights on better forms of Cloud storage.

Fragmentation and transition: understanding perceptions of virtual possessions among young adults in Spain, South Korea and the United States

Despite the popularization of product personalization systems, it is difficult for people to personalize a product in a way that symbolizes themselves and their daily lives. Borrowing the characteristics of patina generation, we suggest patina-inspired personalization as an alternative approach. This approach is a way of progressive personalization through transforming digital traces of product use into patina-like material traces on a product. As an exemplar, we developed Trace-Marker, a custom-built laser engraver for bicycle riders. It engraves aesthetic patterns on a bicycle bag according to a user's bicycle journey. During the field trial with 10 participants for three weeks, participants used the system to add symbolic meanings, in particular their unique identities and personal stories on their bags. The permanently engraved patterns enhanced the emotional bond with the bags. Based on the field trial, we discuss implications for improving patina-inspired personalization in wider contexts.

Patina-inspired Personalization: Personalizing Products with Traces of Daily Use

We introduce DayClo, an interactive clock visualizing schedule data for supporting users to reflect and self-track themselves in their daily lives. DayClo is designed by applying the form and time representation method of analog clocks. It shows the user's upcoming schedules through the sequential movement of two clock hands with hidden LEDs and a display. We deployed DayClo in eight participants' working spaces for a month to explore how the design and its interaction could support their reflections on their scheduling practices. The findings revealed that DayClo supported users' casual access to the schedule data and motivated self-tracking of their plans. Moreover, the moving clock hands revealed the empty time of their schedules and helped to draw new plans for their implicit goal. Our findings suggest new opportunities for designing everyday objects as a medium of delivering and fostering spontaneous interaction with personal data for self-reflection.

DayClo: An Everyday Table Clock Providing Interaction with Personal Schedule Data for Self-reflection

This paper considers the stability of haptic interface that interacts with rigid virtual objects. Human arm is characterized with a linear time-invariant second-order impedance model, and a response model to the simulated force. Nonlinear virtual coupling is designed based on the human response model. This provides with less conservative constraint for the design of the stable haptic interface.

Moon-Hwan Lee

Papers

Patina Engraver: Visualizing Activity Logs as Patina in Fashionable Trackers

Fragmentation and transition: understanding perceptions of virtual possessions among young adults in Spain, South Korea and the United States

Patina-inspired Personalization: Personalizing Products with Traces of Daily Use

DayClo: An Everyday Table Clock Providing Interaction with Personal Schedule Data for Self-reflection

Stability of haptic interface using nonlinear virtual coupling