A Stage-Based Model of Personal Informatics Systems

In this paper Li et al. look to explore the problems of personal informatics systems as encountered by users in an attempt to develop a model for the better design of such systems through a survey of 68 participants and 11 follow-up interviews. From the user’s experience, they formed the basis of their model by identifying five key stages that each user goes through when using personal informatics systems: preparation, collection, integration, reflection and action.

They discuss the model further by identifying issues that user’s experienced through each stage, including issues of deciding on the most appropriate tool to use in data collection; the difficulties in switching between tools; remembering to record their data; the accuracy of inputting data; organising their data; and poor visualisation of the data for their own reflection, to name but a few.

Li et al. also showed that there is a need to design personal informatics systems holistically, taking into consideration that barriers cascade across each stage, that participants reported using tools iteratively and that users would like to combine multiple facets of their lives into their data.

The paper does identify that a limitation of the study is the use of dedicated personal informatics systems’ blogs to recruit participants meaning most were already interested and had previously, or were actively using tools. With the vast array of self-monitoring apps available, a much larger proportion of people have at least tried such tools meaning a sample of 68 people would provide a limited understanding. I was also unsure about the robustness of the methodology used and how scalable the experiences from instant messaging interviews would be.  I am aware that a large-scale study is not always possible but for something so broad and not limited to a certain population, there is a need to understand the experiences of a much wider cross section of the population.

In my opinion, the paper attempts to achieve a lot in a short space of time. Understanding user’s experience is a key challenge in this field as demonstrated by other research [1, 2]. The jump in this paper from users’ issues to a design model seemed quite crude simply because of the participant sample. Despite this, the model itself did make a lot of sense and seemed to be recommending a sensible approach to designing personal informatics systems.

The participatory side of me also wondered if there should be more scope to find out what people actually want to record and have them help to design tools that are suitable for a range of people. I found a whole range of participatory design approaches to designing personal informatics for specific communities [3, 4] but why not take such an approach on a more general scale which could take into account the need to be flexible. With a key issue being the lack of flexibility in current tools, participatory approaches could also aim to design something that allows people to record multiple types of information should they wish to.

The paper I have chosen is ‘From self-tracking to smart urban infrastructures: Towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on Big Data’. The paper looks to explore the individual use of self-tracking as well as the optimisation trend to improve urban infrastructures with a focus on the issue of surveillance, something which I am interested in.

[1]Elsden, C. et al. 2015. A Quantified Past: Towards Design for Remembering with Personal Informatics. Human–Computer Interaction. (2015), 150923205236008.

[2]Harper, R. et al. 2008. The past is a different place: they do things differently there. Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Designing interactive systems. (2008), 271-280.

[3]Siek, K. et al. 2011. Designing a Personal Health Application for Older Adults to Manage Medications: A Comprehensive Case Study. J Med Syst. 35, 5 (2011), 1099-1121.

[4]Kanstrup, A. et al. 2008. Design for More: an Ambient Perspective on Diabetes. PDC ’08 Proceedings of the Tenth Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design (2008).