Animo

Abstract

We present Animo, a smartwatch app that enables people to share and view each other's biosignals. We designed and engineered Animo to explore new ground for smartwatch-based biosignals social computing systems: identifying opportunities where these systems can support lightweight and mood-centric interactions. In our work we develop, explore, and evaluate several innovative features designed for dyadic communication of heart rate. We discuss the results of a two-week study (N=34), including new communication patterns participants engaged in, and outline the design landscape for communicating with biosignals on smartwatches.

The Effect of Expressive Biosignals on Empathy and Closeness for a Stigmatized Group Member

“…A small body of prior work has explored these expressive biosignals, beginning to show that information about another person's biosignals can help facilitate empathy and social awareness [35,38,51] and, in some contexts, a greater sense of intimacy and connection [40,50]. These results point to potential opportunities for expressive biosignals to support interventions for bridging understanding with others, such in contexts in which feeling empathy or closeness with others is challenging (e.g., with members of socially distant groups, or physically remote others).…”

“…Prior literature suggests the potential for expressive biosignals to affect empathy for others. In particular, several qualitative studies that deploy expressive biosignal systems (both in the wild and in laboratory settings) have demonstrated that people tend to infer and be more aware of a close contact's emotional state through displays of heart rate and skin conductance [35,38,49,51].…”

“…can promote sympathy with and desire to support others [51]. In the current work, we sought to directly examine the relationship between biosignals and these two components of empathy.…”

“…Research has also shown that expressive biosignals can affect closeness with others. For instance, systems such as rings or smartwatches where you can feel or see a partner's heart rate can improve feelings of being connected with remote friends and family [49,51,56,63,69]. Janssen and colleagues demonstrate that biosignals can also increase feelings of closeness with strangers.…”

“…Moreover, in a study where participants sent texts of their heart rate to others, Liu and colleagues found that participants desired more vivid and expressive visualizations for their heart rate than simple text denoting their beats per minute [50]. Animated depictions of heart rate on a smartwatch have also shown the potential to increase the salience of another person [51].…”