CIID PILOT YEARFINAL PROJECTMONDAY 22ND JUNE 2009

EILIDH DICKSON : FINAL PROJECT REVIEW

CIID/DKDS PILOT YEAR

STARTING POINT: PERSONAL INFORMATICS, BEHAVIOUR CHANGE, LIFE BALANCE

AN EXPLORATION INTO HOW PERSONAL INFORMATICS CAN FACILITATE BEHAVIOUR CHANGE AND

ENABLE PEOPLE TO FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE A MORE BALANCED LIFE

“measuring things about yourself, then being able to reflect on them, and may be make changes”

matt jones (dopplr)

How can people become more aware and learn about their l ifestyle habits and how can Personal

Informatics can play a role in helping people achieve this by tracking information about our daily

actions which is often intangible .

Being engulfed in specific contexts often makes it difficult to see the bigger picture. I am curious to

understand if personal informatics can enable people to pinpoint areas of their l ife that bring them

personal fulfi l lment and support them to experience this more often.

‘ t ime poverty’ . . . . People need to feel connected . Traditionally this was much easier to achieve. These

connections have been weakened because of a fast pace of l ife . 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.

Existing personal informatics tools on the market mainly focus 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.

RESEARCH: WHAT I WANTED TO FIND OUT AND WHO I TALKED TO

Gain an understanding of what it means for people to l ive a balanced l ife, what are people’s personal

values they need to meet to feel comfortable in their l ifestyle, how does this change depending on

what stage of their l ife they are at and do they use any tools or strategies to achieve this.

STUDENT

WORKING

LIVING ALONE LIVING WITH PARTNER/HUSBAND

EXTREME USER

HAS CHILDREN

PERNILLEERIC

MARTIN

JON

LAURA

RUNE

AMANDA

RUNE. P

FRANCESSCA

KATE

KRISTIAN

DAVID

RESEARCH: WHAT TOOLS I USED

RESEARCH: WHAT DID I FIND OUT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN

WH

AT

I L

EA

RN

ED

WH

AT

DO

ES

IT

ME

AN

“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

you can write something

positive in it, kind of

indirect motivation”

“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”

“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”

“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”

“Prioritizing is difficult,

it would be good to have

ground rules, or a rule of

thumb to follow”

Having to actively record

you activities makes

people more motivated to

do well, especially if they

think someone else it

going to see it

People feel silly

scheduling ‘me time’ but

are interested to

understand what they

spend their time on and

when

People need to have a

constant reminder of what

is important to do

otherwise they will ignore

it

People easily forget how

important something is

and how much they enjoy

it when they stop

doing it

People like to be guided

in some when it comes to

making personal decisions,

they would like the

reassurance they are

making the correct choice

RESEARCH: WHAT DID I FIND OUT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN

WH

AT

I L

EA

RN

ED

WH

AT

DO

ES

IT

ME

AN

“I like to keep to a tight

schedule for work during

the day, so i can then be

more flexible and

spontaneous with my

free time”

“I didn’t actuallly realise

how much i was

travelling for work intil i

saw it visually, how much

of my diary was coloured

in”

“I’m not actually sure

where you diary is, but

it was really interesting

having to fill it in,

especially the things

that i didn’t manage to

acheive”

When asked to make an

emotional time line for

a certain period of time

in their lives, the areas

where they felt most

unbalanced where during

a transition in their life,

ranging from moving to a

new country, to starting

a business to starting a

new job

Giving people the tools

or platform to be able

to reflect on what is

important to them is a

valuable and interesting

experience

Having a level of structure

in certain areas of your

life, allows you to flexible

in other areas. A

combination of routine

and being spontaneous

can be a positive thing

People are less aware of

certain habits when they

happen over a longer

period of time. People

become more aware when

they are reflecting rather

than when something

happens in the moment

People can become

motivated to do better and

improve when they are

made aware of things that

they have not

managed to acheive, they

create a competition with

themselves

People often feel

unbalanced when they is a

big chnage in their life or

something new is about to

happen, even if it is not a

negative experience

Asking to define their

priorities was a hard task

for some people, as they

don’t often have the

opportunity to think about

it. It was interesting for

them to think about and

how often they actually

acheive these things they

want to

USER GROUPS: DIFFERENT TYPES OF USERS THAT EMERGED FROM RESEARCH

2

WORRIED AND WILLING

1

NEED CONVINCING

3

ENTHUSIASTS

People that are unaware or try to ignore that they have an unbalanced l ife, and need help prioritising. For them to committ there needs to be minimal input, with a high level of return

People that know they want to change their behaviour and are motivated to do make changes. They wil l invest more effort if theyknow they wil l learn from it

People that are already good at meeting their priorities, but they sti l l want to be better. They l ike the idea of tracking their behaviour to see patterns and gain a deeper insight

DESIGN CHALLENGE: HOW MIGHT WE.. . . .

Due to an increased pace of l ife 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 l ives, which has resulted in l ifestyle 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 l ife is that

people become absorbed in ‘achieving more’ and detached from what their day-to-day l ife looks l ike and what brings

them a real sense of enjoyment. Within their busy l ives people find it hard to prioritize when making decisions in their

own l ife and would often l ike 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 l ife on a bigger scale they have to first reconnect to themselves, focusing on what they need to do, to be

content rather than everything that is possible.

[ ]HOW MIGHT WE CREATE A CUSTOMIZABLE PLATFORM THAT WILL HELP PEOPLE 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?

IDEA SEED: WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM

A service that uses GPS tracking and an easy level of direct reporting (data input) to build up an overview in the form of a map of where you sepnd your time (relative to yout personal priorites) in what context, with who and how happy you are at that point in time.

It gives people the opportunity to reflect in the moment and over time,allowing them to understand their behaviour, so they can then understand where changes can be made.

The system provides a platform that is customizable by the user so they can determine the level of input and output they want

CONCEPT: AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT THE IDEA IS

SERVICE

+

c+ + + +

ONLINE PROFILE GPS AND DATA INPUT

HAPPINESS TIME PEOPLE ACTIVITY LOCATION

c c

MAPS YOUR EXPERIENCE REFLECTION IN MOMENT + OVER TIME SHARE OF INFORMATION/COMMUNITY

Use feedback to to give gentle nudges along the way

“Game mechanics are rule based systems/simulations that facil itate and encourage a user

to explore and learn the properties of their possible space through the use of feedback

mechanisms” Ralph Koster, Game Designer

Using feedback mechanisms to Inform what you can do to change your behaviour in

real t ime

Use vizualizations to tell a story “DATA + TIME = STORY” (Matt locke)

Leave it open enough so the user can fi l l in the end of the story themselves, don’t tel l

them what to do but provide them with clear and useful information

THINGS TO CONSIDER... . .

EXPERIMENT 1: MAPPING PEOPLES ACTIVITIES (LOCATION BASED)

EXPERIMENT 1 INSIGHTS: WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS PROTOTYPE

People were unaware of how busy they actually were and how much they did inti l they saw

it mapped out visually

Each person categorizes their time very differently

When you see your activities on an actual ‘map’ you can very easily start to see patterns

forming, and by putting the activities in time categories you can very quickly see an

overview of how you spend your time

SERVICE CONCEPT: STAGES OF THE SERVICE + USER SCENARIO

1. SIGN UP, LEARNING ABOUT + COMMITTING TO THE SERVICE

2. IMPLEMENTATION, SETTING UP YOUR PERSONAL PROFILE

3. USE, RECORDING AND TRACKING INFORMATION

4. REFLECTION IN THE MOMENT WHILE TRACKING

5. TWO WAY DATA, RECIEVING INFORMATION + ADVICE ON THE MOVE

6. REFLECTION OVER TIME, VIEWING YOUR DATA ONLINE

7: SHARING YOUR DATA WITH EXISTING FRIENDS USING THE SERVICE

8: SHARING DATA WITH STRANGERS WHO HAVE SIMILAR INTERESTS

9: EXPANDING, USING THE SERVICE IN OTHER CITIES

NEXT STEPS... . .

Find all the holes/challenges in my idea.. . . . .

How to build motivation and forgiveness into the service

Define what are the key touchpoints of the service that wil l bring value to the user

Create a brand/tone for the service

Experience prototyping

Story Tell ing