Ambiguity as a Resource to Inform Proto-Practices

Abstract

Skin conductance is an interesting measure of arousal level, largely unfamiliar to most end-users. We designed a mobile application mirroring end-users' skin conductance in evocative visualizations, purposefully made ambiguous to invite rich interpretations. Twenty-three participants used the system for a month. Through the lens of a practice-based analysis of weekly interviews and the logged data, several quite different-sometimes even mutually exclusive-interpretations or proto-practices arose: as stress management; sports performance; emotion tracking; general life logging; personality representation; or behavior change practices. This suggests the value of a purposefully open initial design to allow for the emergence of broader proto-practices to be followed by a second step of tailored design for each identified goal to facilitate the transition from proto-practice to practice. We contribute to the HCI discourse on ambiguity in design, arguing for balancing openness and ambiguity with scaffolding to better support the emergence of practices around biodata. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Interaction design;

From Biodata to Somadata

“…Second, users may have preconceived ideas that colour their meaning-making processes. In a study lasting for a month Sanches and colleagues [40] observed that different user groups came up with entirely different interpretations of an EDA-enabled (Electrodermal Activity), real-time, monitoring system. Participants involved in sports assumed that they would be able to see recovery patterns through their biodata, while people suffering from stress issues looked for indicators of stress or emotion patterns.…”

Body Matters

“…Particularly in tangible and embodied interaction research, there has been a growing exploration of how metaphorical representation of bodily experiences can be effectively implemented into interaction models [7,8,51,55]. For instance, such metaphors have been used for the design of tangible learning systems [10], to foster collaborative shared experiences [23], or to support the self-regulation of attention and affect [9,38].…”

Exploring the Sensed and Unexpected: Not Looking in Gaze Interaction

“…Applications using ambiguous sensing-based interactions are mostly represented in art-related, performative or playful contexts, to create a landscape of provocative and unconventional experiences inviting reflection [2]. In HCI, ambiguity is seen as a problem, but it is introduced as a resource for design [25]. The range of applications using the contextual ambiguity of the sensor is less crowded but present in examples like the POUTs [20].…”