A review and framework for designing interactive technologies for emotion regulation training

Emotion regulation is foundational to mental health and well-being. In the last ten years there has been an increasing focus on the use of interactive technologies to support emotion regulation training in a variety of contexts. However, research has been done in diverse fields, and no cohesive framework exists that explicates what features of such system are important to consider, guidance on how to design these features, and what remains unknown, which should be explored in future design research. To address this gap, this thesis presents the results of a descriptive review of 54 peer-reviewed papers. Through qualitative and frequency analysis I analyzed previous technologies, reviewed their theoretical foundations, the opportunities where they appear to provide unique benefits, and their conceptual and usability challenges. Based on the findings I synthesized a design framework that presents the main concepts and design considerations that researchers and designers may find useful in designing future technologies in the context of emotion regulation training

Self-Tracking by People Living with Multiple Sclerosis: Supporting Experiences of Agency in a Chronic Neurological Condition

Multiple sclerosis is a complex neurological condition. It disrupts the central nervous system leading to an individual range of physical, cognitive, and mental impairments. Research has focused on the tracking of primary disease indicators and disability outcome measures to assess the progression of this condition. However, there is little knowledge on how technologies could support the needs of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) in self-tracking their health and wellbeing. Drawing on qualitative research and design methods this thesis provides two contributions. Firstly, it improves understanding of self-tracking in MS self-management. Interview participants reported regaining a sense of control over MS through intertwining individual self-care practices with different self-tracking tools, including paper notebooks and fitness wearables. They associated experiences of control with their agency to document their health in holistic ways, involving symptom monitoring and life journaling. However, participants criticised that self-tracking apps can impede their capacities, in particular when the user experience is focused on predefined health indicators and the optimisation of health behaviour. These findings highlight the need to support people’s individual self-care intentions and agentive capacities through customisable self- tracking approaches. Secondly, this thesis contributes the design of Trackly, a technology probe that supports people in defining and colouring pictorial trackers, such as body shapes. We identify benefits and challenges of customisable and pictorial self-tracking through a field study of Trackly in MS self-management. Having been able to support their individual self-care intentions with Trackly, participants reported a spectrum of interrelated experiences of agency, including ownership, identity, awareness, mindfulness, and control. Overall, this thesis provides a qualitative account and design perspective that demonstrate how adapting self-tracking technologies to individual care needs supported experiences of agency. These findings are particularly relevant to the design of technologies aimed at leveraging personally meaningful self-care and quality of life

Designing for Self-Tracking of Emotion and Experience with Tangible Modality

Self-tracking technologies have been developed to understand the self. Emotions are critical to understanding one???s daily life; however, tracking the emotion is challenging due to the implicit form of data. In this paper, we introduce MindTracker, an approach for tracking emotion through a tangible interaction with plasticine clay. We explored the benefits and challenges of MindTracker via a two-week data collection study with 16 college students as well as via interviews with three clinical mental health experts. MindTracker is designed for users to craft a form that represents emotion using clay and to describe the experience that evokes the emotion using a diary. We found that the tangible modality of MindTracker motivated the participants to express various aspects of emotions. In addition, MindTracker???s data collection and reflection process could have therapeutic properties, such as expressive therapy, selfsoothing, and emotional self-regulation. We conclude this paper by discussing the design features of emotion-tracking tools and opportunities to use MindTracker to promote mental health

Designing Personal Informatics Technologies for Meaningful Engagement with Experiences During Everyday Life

Responding to calls for more flexible personal informatics (PI) technologies, this thesis explores the design of experiential logging technologies, with which users can engage with the meaning of their subjective experiences during everyday life. The research it describes focused on questions concerning flexibility, minimalism and reflection in this context. It produced two prototypes to investigate these questions with users in the wild. First, using a technological probe with the first prototype, SpriteCatcher, the research observed that users found value and meaning through the act of expressing their experiences through colour data. Further, it suggested the need to explore whether unstructured, expressive manual logging can prompt reflection-in-the-moment. This informed a second prototype, Chromatize, which supported three different minimalist logging methods. Chromatize was used in a larger-scale, 6-week longitudinal study to better understand how flexibility and minimalism support logging and reflection, and to characterise more precisely how users reflect when using such devices. Together, the two studies showed that minimalist, highly flexible PI technology designs provide the means for users to dynamically engage with the aspects of life that are meaningful to them from moment to moment. The expressivity and directness of the logging interactions, and the simplicity and physical presence of the device affect when and how users engage. Drawing on substantial background literature about reflection, the thesis distinguishes between hard and soft reflection. It characterises how users might reflect when they use PI technologies, pointing to the significant role that soft reflection through manual logging can play. It concludes that the field of PI needs to expand its treatment of reflection, placing greater value on short-term, momentary day-to-day insights. The thesis finishes with nine design considerations that distil broad insights from the research. These can inform the design of PI technologies for meaningful engagement with experiences during everyday life