1. CIID PILOT YEAR
FINAL PROJECT
MONDAY 22ND JUNE 2009
EILIDH DICKSON: FINAL PROJECT REVIEW
CIID/DKDS PILOT YEAR

3. 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 lifestyle 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 life that bring them
personal fulfillment and suppor t them to experience this more often.
‘ time poverty’.... People need to feel connected. Traditionally this was much easier to achieve. These
connections have been weakened because of a fast pace of life. Labour saving technologies has
allowed us to achieve more in a shor ter 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.
STARTING POINT: PERSONAL INFORMATICS, BEHAVIOUR CHANGE, LIFE BALANCE

4. Gain an understanding of what it means for people to live a balanced life, what are people’s personal
values they need to meet to feel comfortable in their lifestyle, how does this change depending on
what stage of their life they are at and do they use any tools or strategies to achieve this.
STUDENT
EXTREME USER
HAS CHILDREN
ERIC
PERNILLE RUNE
LIVING WITH
LIVING ALONE PARTNER/HUSBAND
AMANDA KRISTIAN
MARTIN
FRANCESSCA
JON
LAURA RUNE. P
KATE
DAVID
WORKING
RESEARCH: WHAT I WANTED TO FIND OUT AND WHO I TALKED TO

5. RESEARCH: WHAT TOOLS I USED

6. “I don’t currently write in a “I would love to be able “I keep a personal to-do “Hobbies are great when “Prioritizing is difficult,
diary as I imagine to schedule time for list, I prioritise they are built into your it would be good to have
WHAT I LEARNED
someone reading it, so I reading…….but it sounds everything, so when I life, I love it, but when ground rules, or a rule of
won’t put anything kind of dorky….so I would have been neglecting you don’t do it for a while thumb to follow”
personal in it…….I like the love to be able to track something I move it up you forget how much you
approach of this diary, I some of these things I the list, I keep it on my enjoy it until you do it
actually find that I want to would like to be able to desktop so I can always again”
be more productive just so do without having to see it”
you can write something actually track it”
positive in it, kind of
indirect motivation”
Having to actively record People feel silly People need to have a People easily forget how People like to be guided
you activities makes constant reminder of what important something is in some when it comes to
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
scheduling ‘me time’ but
people more motivated to are interested to is important to do and how much they enjoy making personal decisions,
do well, especially if they understand what they otherwise they will ignore it when they stop they would like the
think someone else it spend their time on and it doing it reassurance they are
going to see it when making the correct choice
RESEARCH: WHAT DID I FIND OUT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN

7. “I like to keep to a tight “I didn’t actuallly realise “I’m not actually sure When asked to make an Asking to define their
schedule for work during how much i was where you diary is, but emotional time line for priorities was a hard task
WHAT I LEARNED
the day, so i can then be travelling for work intil i it was really interesting a certain period of time for some people, as they
more flexible and saw it visually, how much having to fill it in, in their lives, the areas don’t often have the
spontaneous with my of my diary was coloured especially the things where they felt most opportunity to think about
free time” in” that i didn’t manage to unbalanced where during it. It was interesting for
acheive” a transition in their life, them to think about and
ranging from moving to a how often they actually
new country, to starting acheive these things they
a business to starting a want to
new job
Having a level of structure People are less aware of People can become People often feel Giving people the tools
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
in certain areas of your certain habits when they motivated to do better and unbalanced when they is a or platform to be able
life, allows you to flexible happen over a longer improve when they are big chnage in their life or to reflect on what is
in other areas. A period of time. People made aware of things that something new is about to important to them is a
combination of routine become more aware when they have not happen, even if it is not a valuable and interesting
and being spontaneous they are reflecting rather managed to acheive, they negative experience experience
can be a positive thing than when something create a competition with
happens in the moment themselves
RESEARCH: WHAT DID I FIND OUT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN

8. 1 2 3
NEED CONVINCING WORRIED AND WILLING ENTHUSIASTS
People that are unaware People that know they People that are already
or try to ignore that they want to change their good at meeting their
have an unbalanced life, behaviour and are priorities, but they still
and need help prioritising. motivated to do make want to be better. They
For them to committ there changes. They will invest like the idea of tracking
needs to be minimal input, more effort if theyknow their behaviour to see
with a high level of return they will learn from it patterns and gain a deeper
insight
USER GROUPS: DIFFERENT TYPES OF USERS THAT EMERGED FROM RESEARCH

9. Due to an increased pace of life 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 lives, which has resulted in lifestyle 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 life is that
people become absorbed in ‘achieving more’ and detached from what their day-to-day life looks like and what brings
them a real sense of enjoyment. Within their busy lives people find it hard to prioritize when making decisions in their
own life and would often like 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 life 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? ]
DESIGN CHALLENGE: HOW MIGHT WE.....

10. IDEA SEED: WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM

11. SERVICE A service that uses GPS tracking
and an easy level of direct
repor ting (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.
ONLINE PROFILE GPS AND DATA INPUT It gives people the oppor tunity to
reflect in the moment and over
time,allowing them to understand
their behaviour, so they can then
understand where changes can be
+c+ + +
made.
The system provides a platform that
is customizable by the user so they
HAPPINESS TIME PEOPLE ACTIVITY LOCATION can determine the level of input and
output they want
c c
MAPS YOUR EXPERIENCE REFLECTION IN MOMENT + OVER TIME SHARE OF INFORMATION/COMMUNITY
CONCEPT: AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT THE IDEA IS

12. Use feedback to to give gentle nudges along the way
“Game mechanics are rule based systems/simulations that facilitate and encourage a user
to explore and learn the proper ties 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 time
Use vizualizations to tell a story “DATA + TIME = STORY” (Matt locke)
Leave it open enough so the user can fill in the end of the story themselves, don’t tell
them what to do but provide them with clear and useful information
THINGS TO CONSIDER.....

13. EXPERIMENT 1: MAPPING PEOPLES ACTIVITIES (LOCATION BASED)

14. People were unaware of how busy they actually were and how much they did intil 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
EXPERIMENT 1 INSIGHTS: WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS PROTOTYPE

15. 1. SIGN UP, 2. IMPLEMENTATION, 3. USE, RECORDING
LEARNING ABOUT SETTING UP YOUR AND TRACKING
+ COMMITTING TO PERSONAL PROFILE INFORMATION
THE SERVICE
4. REFLECTION IN 5. TWO WAY DATA, 6. REFLECTION OVER
THE MOMENT WHILE RECIEVING TIME, VIEWING YOUR
TRACKING INFORMATION + DATA ONLINE
ADVICE ON THE MOVE
7: SHARING YOUR 8: SHARING DATA 9: EXPANDING, USING
DATA WITH EXISTING WITH STRANGERS THE SERVICE IN
FRIENDS USING THE WHO HAVE SIMILAR OTHER CITIES
SERVICE INTERESTS
SERVICE CONCEPT: STAGES OF THE SERVICE + USER SCENARIO

16. 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 will bring value to the user
Create a brand/tone for the service
Experience prototyping
Story Telling
NEXT STEPS.....