Wearable Devices for Health and Wellbeing: Design Insights from Twitter

Wearable devices are increasingly recognized for their potential to improve health and wellbeing. However, challenges remain for wide-scale adoption and use. This paper explores perception and reactions towards wearable devices with a particular emphasis on factors that influence the adoption and use to improve health and well-being and which can also inform their design as components of a behavioral change system. We use social media analytics to analyze and categorize tweets related to major manufacturers of consumer wearable devices from June 1, 2017 – May 31, 2018. We used extant literature on the design of persuasive systems to inform the definition of pertinent categories. The findings confirmed the relevance of persuasive design features such as Dialog, credibility, and social support, though to various degrees. The analysis sheds light on other user priorities pertaining to device characteristics, integration with other systems, issues surrounding actually wearing these devices on a regular basis

Design recommendations to improve the user interaction with wrist worn devices

Wrist worn devices (WWDs) including fitness trackers and smart watches have been successfully employed to support various applications, ranging from gesture recognition to authentication. Despite the increasing number of WWDs in the market, their limited dimensions and capabilities make their interaction design challenging. Designers struggle to downsize interactions originally designed for mobile phones, and end users wish for interactions that are easy to use. To better understand the users’ concerns regarding the interaction with WWDs, we collected feedback about existing wearable bands, and analyzed the most critical issues currently faced in the interaction with such devices. The analysis of the findings enabled us to derive 10 design recommendations that can aid to improve the interaction design in novel WWDs

Étude de l’interface utilisateur d’un système porté au poignet non muni d’écran

RÉSUMÉ : À ce jour, concevoir l'interface d'un système porté au poignet demeure un défi. L'acceptation par la masse des utilisateurs est freinée par de nombreux obstacles. Il y a peu d’études sur la façon de concevoir efficacement ces interfaces émergentes. Les quelques études sur le sujet se sont concentrées sur de nouvelles formes d’interactions, des prototypes et des lignes directrices, mais une validation sur le terrain faisait toujours défaut. Le bracelet Nex est un système porté au poignet qui n'a pas d'écran. Il communique avec l'utilisateur au moyen de patrons de lumières et de vibrations et l'utilisateur peut communiquer avec le bracelet de façon tactile au moyen de cinq boutons programmables. Comment concevoir cette interface pour qu'elle soit facilement utilisable et utilisée à long terme ? L'objectif de notre étude a été de rendre compte de l’utilisation d’un système porté en situation réelle en recueillant des données empiriques sur l’utilisation du bracelet sur le terrain. La première partie de l'étude a consisté à faire le point sur l’état des connaissances au sujet des interfaces de systèmes portés au poignet et de participer à la conception de l’interface d’un bracelet qui utilise des patrons lumineux et vibrotactiles. La deuxième partie de l'étude a consisté à évaluer l’interface d’un prototype de bracelet auprès de 24 participants tant en laboratoire que sur le terrain pendant une période pouvant aller jusqu’à trois mois. Les principaux résultats ont porté autant sur l'interface utilisateur que sur le bracelet lui-même. Ils nous révèlent que des lacunes dans la forme et l'esthétique du bracelet ont freiné l'acceptation de ce dernier par les utilisateurs. Un ajustement inadéquat du bracelet sur le poignet a compromis la perception de la vibration, ce qui a nui à la perception des notifications envoyées à l’utilisateur et à l’appréciation de l'utilité même du bracelet. L'apprentissage des patrons représentait une charge cognitive significative qui a eu un impact sur la perception de la facilité d'utilisation. Les utilisateurs ont préféré créer des patrons de lumières personnalisés plutôt que d’utiliser ceux qui leur étaient proposés par le système parce qu'ils pensaient que ce serait ainsi plus facile de s’en rappeler.----------ABSTRACT : As of today, designing the interface of a wrist worn wearable remains a challenge. User acceptance by the mass is slowed by many road blocks. There is little research on how to design effectively these emerging interfaces. Few studies have focused on novel interactions, prototypes and guidelines, but a validation on the field was lacking. The Nex band is a wrist worn wearable that has no screen. It communicates with the user by means of light and vibration patterns and the user can communicate with the band through five touch-enabled LED lenses. How can we design this interface to be easy to use and used over the long term? The goal of this study was to give an account of the use of a wearable system in the field by gathering empirical data on a real-world usage of a wrist worn wearable. The first part of the study consisted in presenting the knowledge so far acquired concerning the interfaces of wrist worn wearables and participating in the design of an interface for a bracelet that uses light patterns and vibrations. The second part of the study consisted in evaluating the interface of a bracelet prototype with 24 participants both in the laboratory and in the field, for up to 3 months of use. Main findings were as much related to the interface than the band itself. The form and esthetics of the band are the main challenges to user acceptance. The fitting on the wrist impacts the perception of the vibration and has consequences on the perception of notifications sent to the user and on the appreciation of the band usefulness. Learning the patterns was somewhat a cognitive load and impacted the perceived ease of use. Self-generated light patterns were preferred to those proposed by the system because they were perceived as easier to remember

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN THE CONTEXT OF EVERYDAY LIFE AND HOW WEARABLE ACTIVITY TRACKERS INCORPORATE INTO EVERYDAY LIFE OF OFFICE WORKERS

Sitting in the office occupies so much of people’s time that they often do not have time to exercise to stay in shape and maintain a healthy body weight. Because of the culture of hard work so deeply ingrained in Korea, Korean office workers have a sedentary lifestyle that they often do not have time to exercise. Recently, wearable activity tracking device allows people to track and understand their daily physical activities. These devices monitor users’ daily life and it could support of people who have a sedentary lifestyle by collecting their physical activity data. However, the device does not collect and consider users’ contextual factors and environmental factors how those affects physical activity in daily life. The objective of this dissertation is to discover how the context of everyday life affects physical activity steps in the use of wearable activity tracking device. This dissertation approach was triangulation mixed methods, using both quantitative and qualitative measures to identify a few everyday activities as a starting point and then tracking and analyzing those behaviors. By using this triangulation mixed-method approach, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire assessments, supplemented with daily diary (as known as Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)) and activity log data, this dissertation aimed to concentrate on how the context of everyday life affects physical activity steps when using a wearable activity tracking device. Furthermore, to examine the potential differences in the use and adoption of the devices, this study included two specific populations: 27 adopters and 66 abandoners. To our knowledge, no studies have examined the utility of EMA methodologies by using wearable tracking device such as Fitbit to discover contextual and environmental factors that interaction with increasing physical activity among office workers. This study discovered integral contextual factors that could influence physical activity changes in the use of wearable devices in everyday life context. The findings presented in this dissertation add to our theoretical understanding of everyday life information practices. This also have practical implications for systems designers of wearable activity tracker who should consider users’ environments, individual contextual factors, and information practices.Doctor of Philosoph