Blog 07: Reflective Informatics

Here I am again with yet another interesting point of view for Affective Computing. The topic of this week is called Reflective Informatics. Reflective informatics has been a subtopic which has been receiving interest from technologies which support reflection for the data being collected. Most common examples of reflective technology are fitness applications which collect and analyze user data. Although the implementation makes a lot of sense today, the definition of reflective informatics is pretty vague in the HCI community as it has been studied in various approaches. To bring all these approaches under one umbrella Baumer’s studies of the literature surrounding health informatics in HCI has resulted in great significance. Baumer’s study aided towards understanding the space of reflective informatics to provide guidelines for implementations of reflective designs. This study stated three dimensions for reflective informatics which included reflection, inquiry and transformation. The study discussed various assumptions in the field of reflective informatics which were inclusive of valuable, power and privilege, as well as evaluation. 

With this paper I learned that adaptation reflective information is subject to various considerations. First, the ability or the willingness of an  individual to reflect which depends upon the individual's willingness to reflect. Secondly, the mindset of an individual which along with the surrounding thoughts. And lastly, the technology medium which plays a vital role for determining the complexity of reflection. The study also discussed design implications for reflexive informatics. The one that stood out for me was to address the question of what benefits does reflection provide like increased learning, improved performance.

Moving forward, the second study for this week helped me gain understanding regarding the practical implementation for reflective informatics. The technological advancements and huge data generation from personal smart devices were prime motives behind this study. The study focused on studying user perceptions for self reflection. This study was implemented with the help of a web based application called Visualized Self. Visualized Self which gave out reflective statistics  to support data exploration for the general public and was based on the personal data context. The Visualized Self featured various data for reflection which was inclusive of sleep and heart rate obtained from multiple sources like health bands and fitness apps. The results of this study indicated that the users perceived excitement over the concept of a personal data visualization platform, and were able to identify many personal insights. However the study also identified shortcomings for Visualized Self application. The shortcomings mentioned how the application lacked  implementation of rich analysis and incorporation of sophisticated context for the study.

Talking about my key takeaways this week. I believe that self reflection should always guide an individual towards a goal or satisfy an objective. There is no point of having data and visualizations to reflect if there is no cause attached to it. While individuals do not have the ability to measure every aspect of their lives, reflective informatics can result in being a big step for contributing towards self improvement. Today, we have access to brilliant self reflective tools on our fingertips. One example which comes to my mind is the screen time feature on iphones which informs you the amount of time you look at your screen. It also provides tools which can help you reduce your screen time. As I wonder how many such reflective tools have gone unnoticed by me, I also think about what the future of reflective informatics holds. Would we be able to look at the purity percentage of Air consumed by us? The speed of our height growth? Or keep track of our vision capabilities? Only research will tell!

References:

[1] Reflective Informatics: Conceptual Dimensions for Designing Technologies of Reflection

[2] Understanding Self-Reflection: How People Reflect on Personal Data Through Visual Data Exploration