Supporting Meaningful Personal Fitness: the Tracker Goal Evolution Model

While the number of users sporting fitness trackers is constantly increasing, little is understood about how tracking goals can evolve over time. As recent studies have shown that the long-term health effects of trackers are limited, we need to readdress how trackers engage users. We conducted semi-structured interviews and an online survey to explore how users change their tracking goals. Based on our results, we created the Tracker Goal Evolution Model. The model describes how tracker goals can evolve from internal user needs through qualitative goals to quantitative goals that can be used with trackers. It also includes trust and reflection as key contextual factors contributing to meaningful transitions between goals. We postulate showing how tracker goals relate to other personal fitness goals as key for long-term engagement with trackers. Our model is useful for designers of future trackers as a tool to create evolving and meaningful tracking goals.

[1]  Matthew Chalmers,et al.  Seamful interweaving: heterogeneity in the theory and design of interactive systems , 2004, DIS '04.

[2]  Catrine Tudor-Locke,et al.  Health benefits of a pedometer-based physical activity intervention in sedentary workers. , 2004, Preventive medicine.

[3]  Rino Falcone,et al.  Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model , 2010 .

[4]  A. Waterman.  Two conceptions of happiness: Contrasts of personal expressiveness (eudaimonia) and hedonic enjoyment. , 1993 .

[5]  Veronika Huta,et al.  An Overview of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-being Concepts , 2016 .

[6]  Florian Alt,et al.  HeartChat: Heart Rate Augmented Mobile Chat to Support Empathy and Awareness , 2017, CHI.

[7]  M. Marcus,et al.  Effect of Wearable Technology Combined With a Lifestyle Intervention on Long-term Weight Loss: The IDEA Randomized Clinical Trial. , 2016, JAMA.

[8]  A. Waterman,et al.  Eudaimonia and Its Distinction from Hedonia: Developing a Classification and Terminology for Understanding Conceptual and Operational Definitions , 2014 .

[9]  E. Deci,et al.  On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[10]  Sarah Diefenbach,et al.  Communication Styles of Interactive Tools for Self-Improvement , 2016, Psychology of well-being.

[11]  T. Knight,et al.  Integrating the hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives to more comprehensively understand wellbeing and pathways to wellbeing , 2012 .

[12]  A. Delle Fave,et al.  The Eudaimonic and Hedonic Components of Happiness: Qualitative and Quantitative Findings , 2011 .

[13]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Positive psychology. An introduction. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[14]  V. Huta.  The Complementary Roles of Eudaimonia and Hedonia and How They Can Be Pursued in Practice , 2015 .

[15]  Kasper Hornbæk,et al.  Momentary Pleasure or Lasting Meaning?: Distinguishing Eudaimonic and Hedonic User Experiences , 2016, CHI.

[16]  Tek-Jin Nam,et al.  Patina Engraver: Visualizing Activity Logs as Patina in Fashionable Trackers , 2015, CHI.

[17]  Morten Fjeld,et al.  Flow is Not Enough: Understanding the Needs of Advanced Amateur Runners to Design Motivation Technology , 2015, CHI.

[18]  Jodi Forlizzi,et al.  A stage-based model of personal informatics systems , 2010, CHI.

[19]  Sean A. Munson,et al.  A lived informatics model of personal informatics , 2015, UbiComp.

[20]  Eric Baumer,et al.  Reflective Informatics: Conceptual Dimensions for Designing Technologies of Reflection , 2015, CHI.

[21]  Matthew Chalmers,et al.  Personal tracking as lived informatics , 2014, CHI.

[22]  Irina Shklovski,et al.  Sharing Steps in the Workplace: Changing Privacy Concerns Over Time , 2016, CHI.

[23]  Irina Shklovski,et al.  Steps, Choices and Moral Accounting: Observations from a Step-Counting Campaign in the Workplace , 2016, CSCW.

[24]  Judy Kay,et al.  Harnessing Long Term Physical Activity Data—How Long-term Trackers Use Data and How an Adherence-based Interface Supports New Insights , 2017, Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol..

[25]  B. Fowers,et al.  Constitutive and instrumental goal orientations and their relations with eudaimonic and hedonic well-being , 2010 .

[26]  Anton Fedosov,et al.  Soil, Rock, and Snow: On Designing for Information Sharing in Outdoor Sports , 2017, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[27]  Lena Mamykina,et al.  No longer wearing: investigating the abandonment of personal health-tracking technologies on craigslist , 2015, UbiComp.

[28]  Sean A. Munson,et al.  Beyond Abandonment to Next Steps: Understanding and Designing for Life after Personal Informatics Tool Use , 2016, CHI.

[29]  James A. Landay,et al.  Design requirements for technologies that encourage physical activity , 2006, CHI.

[30]  Jennifer Marlow,et al.  Staying the Course: System-Driven Lapse Management for Supporting Behavior Change , 2016, CHI.

[31]  Sean A. Munson,et al.  Reconsidering the device in the drawer: lapses as a design opportunity in personal informatics , 2016, UbiComp.

[32]  I. Olkin,et al.  Using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review. , 2007, JAMA.

[33]  Pawel Wozniak,et al.  TickTockRun: Towards Enhancing Communication in Runner Families , 2016, CSCW '16 Companion.

[34]  E. Deci,et al.  Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: an introduction , 2008 .