Results of the Personal Informatics Survey
Ian Li
In the summer of 2009, I posted a survey of personal informatics tools on The Quantified Self, Flowing Data, and forums at personal informatics sites like Slife and MoodJam. Many people participated describing their experiences using existing tools to track and reflect on personal information. The survey helped us develop a model to describe personal informatics systems (Figure 1). The model is a series of five stages (Preparation, Collection, Integration, Reflection, and Action) with four properties: problems in earlier stages cascade to later stages; stages are iterative; they are user-driven and/or system-driven; and they are uni-faceted and/or multi-faceted. From these properties, we suggest that personal informatics systems should 1) be designed in a holistic manner across the stages; 2) support iteration between stages; 3) apply an appropriate balance of automated technology and user control within each stage to facilitate the user experience; and 4) provide support for associating multiple facets of people's lives to enrich the value of systems. In the rest of this post, I will talk about our findings in further detail and discuss how the model can guide the evaluation and design of personal informatics systems.
Figure 1. The stage-based model of personal informatics systems and its four properties.
(Full report after the jump.)
Digifit Connects iPhone to Self Tracking Devices
Gary Wolf
This is a pre-announcement of what looks to be a service to connect the iPhone to any fitness and health self-tracking device that uses the ANT+ low power wireless protocol. In lay terms: this means that you should be able to get a bunch of things to talk to your iPhone that couldn't before, including some popular sports watches, heart rate monitors, pedometers, rowing machines, etc. I haven't been able to find a good list of popular self tracking tools that use ANT+, but here is a list of companies listed on the ANT+ web site. I assume that at least some of the products companies these companies make use ANT+. Maybe they all do. Enlighten me in the comments if you own an ANT+ device.
QS Fantasy: One Device for Everything
Gary Wolf
I found the following announcement from Tech-On via a tweet by Scot Kozicki, and found it very entertaining. A company called WIN Human Recorder Co Ltd has launched a new device to collect multiple streams of biometric data. There are all kinds of reasons to be skeptical of this version of the universal biometric collection fantasy. For instance, is it supposed to talk to peripheral devices manufactured by different companies, using different data standards and competing low power communication protocols? Or is it meant to be the hub of a proprietary, stand-alone system for complete bio-monitoring, a model that is distinctly backward looking?
Still, I love the implicit optimism of this announcement, which reflects the fact that these technologies are not very difficult, in themselves, to conceive of and produce. The fantasy of total biometrics is becoming widespread. Here's an excerpt of the news release.
WIN Human Recorder Co Ltd, a Japan-based venture firm, launched a health monitoring service that uses a sensor network.
In the service, Health-related information is collected and analyzed by a small sensor attached to a human body, and it is viewed and managed on a mobile phone or a PC. The company commercialized the health monitoring system, which is called "human recorder system," based on the research results of the Advanced Institute of Wearable Information Networks (WIN), a nonprofit organization established by researchers at the University of Tokyo. WIN is a group led by Kiyoshi Itao, professor emeritus at the university.
The sensor is used to measure electrocardiographic signals, heart rate, brain waves, accelerated velocity, body temperature, respiration, pulse wave and so forth. WIN helped develop, for example, a program to analyze each data and determine health condition.
Robin Barooah's "Equanimity" - Meditation Tracker
Gary Wolf
Robin Barooah presented his new meditation tracker, called "Equanimity" at the recent QS Show&Tell hosted by MedHelp. A meditation practice is a powerful tool for increased well being and yet, for something so simple and cost-free, it surprisingly difficult to maintain. The problem of "resistance" in meditation is well known. Even people with long years of practice encounter resistance. I have been using Robin's tracker for a couple of days, and am looking forward to seeing if it helps. One thing is already clear: it is a lovely design.
Organizing A QS Show&Tell
Gary Wolf
We've been asked by fans of QS about organizing QS Show&Tell meetings in their own cities. (Along with the Bay Area QS Show&Tell, there is a thriving New York QS Show&Tell, and new Boston QS Show&Tell just getting going.) Below is a basic FAQ about organizing a meeting of your own. While much of it is no doubt familiar to you if you read this blog, or have been to a Show&Tell, it's posted here as the easiest way to make it generally available, and also to invite you to comment if you see anything that could be improved.(Full document after the jump.)
One (micro) Syntax to Join Them All
Mike Kirkwood
At the recent San Francisco Quantified Self Meetup, I had a chance to share the OMHE Open Mobile Health Exchange microsyntax standard. This post goes into more detail about how it works and what is the end game for such an effort.It is being developed in coordination with the Microsyntax.org effort and the project is hosted on Google Code. This group was started by Alan Viars, Alan's company Videntity has been contributing to the project and building a twitter bot to respond to OMHE Twitter messages. Several other companies, including Polka (disclaimer, author is founder of Polka and contributor to OMHE) and Keas have signed on to support this standards effort, and more have expressed interest in jumping on board.
QS Resources on Delicious
Gary Wolf
We are trying a new approach to cataloging the many tips we've received about valuable resources related to the Quantified Self. We're going to be using Delicious to tag the links. Self-quantifier extraordinaire Mark Carranza has volunteered to to take the tag stream and munge it into into a better, more useful resource list. But for this to work, we need tags.I've gotten things started, using this tag on Delicious: qsresource.
If you find something interesting, and want to help, please give it this tag, plus any other tags that make sense. Here are some examples:
fitness
data
lifelogging
Below you will find a link to a public document that contains many links to explore. You can just click through the link, tag it in delicious with "qsresources" and whatever other tags you want, and, if possible, write a one sentence description in the notes field.
Quantified Self Resource Links
QS Show&Tell - Tips for Presenters
Gary Wolf
As we get ready for another big Bay Area QS Show&Tell, I thought I would post some tips for people planning to present. Feel free to add other tips in the comments. These meetings continue to be really fun and inspiring. Now that we are getting bigger, it is probably best to email if you plan to present, so you can get on the schedule.Along with the Bay Area Show&Tell linked above, there is now a thriving New York Quantified Self group, and a Boston Quantified Self just getting started and planning its first meeting.
If you want to get one going in your area, just let us know and we will help.
TIPS FOR PRESENTERS
Total presentation time: 10 minutes (varies depending on # of people wanting to present, but this is a safe bet)
Recommended structure: 5 minute talk, 5 minute QA
Visuals: only if you feel like it, not necessary.
Style: informal. People will interrupt with questions.
Nature of group: well-informed, enthusiastic users and makers of self-tracking tools.
Best topic:
*actual, existing self tracking project (especially 1st person account)
*how it works
*why do it? (an important question, always answer this!)
*what did you learn?
Other topics that are welcome:
*academic/scientific discoveries that will inspire self-trackers
*new devices/tools that people can try
*something interesting and relevant we haven't thought of
What we try to avoid:
*general philosophical/speculative discussion
*controversy about high level issues like privacy, etc.
*business pitches
New York QS Show&Tell #4 - Recap
Steve Dean
Before the holidays we held our 4th NY QS Show&Tell at Meetup HQ. Thanks to our hosts Scott Heiferman and Camille Alexander from Meetup and a special thanks to our new videographer, Evan Creem.
Self-Tracking Tools
Garfield started us off by describing Jerry Seinfeld's "don't break the chain concept" as a success formula for writing a joke a day. He went on to show us a method of using forms and spreadsheets with Google docs and then walked us through one of the best iPhone apps for tracking daily activities, Daily Tracker. Garfield's presentation on Vimeo.
Get Paid to Lose Weight
David from HealthWage presented his new venture that ties incentives to behavior change. David showed us several of the self-tracking features of the site to get feedback from the group. David's presentation on Vimeo.
The Standards Project
Jake Lodwick shared with us his personal experience developing a self-monitoring and goal-setting system to help him address his lack of a sense of what to do each day. This is a fascinating look into self-examination and then doing something about the things we're unhappy with about ourselves by using self-experimentation and self-tracking methods. Jake's blog on the project. Jake's presentation on Vimeo.
Geo-Tracking
Ted Power tapped into InstaMapper for real-time GPS tracking of his cellphone. He has about a year of data that tracks his location every 20 seconds. He showed us a mapping of his daily commute and even a kayak trip down the East River. Ted also pulled the data into Processing to experiment with visualizing it on a map. Ted's presentation on Vimeo.
Computerized Text Analysis
Jamie Pennebaker took us along a fascinating journey into the nature of language and words. Jamie, a professor in the Dept. of Psychology at UT Austin, has developed tools to analyze any text to identify positive words, negative words, and emotions by focusing on what he calls junk words: pronouns, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary words. Get started by analyzing your own Twitter feed at AnalyzeWords.com, get the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis software, or have fun with some of his brief demonstrations. Jamie's presentation on Vimeo.
Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale
Steve Dean
During the November NY QS Show&Tell (#3), many of us were excited to learn about the wi-fi body scale by Withings when Bethany Soule showed us how she had integrated her own Withings scale using their API into her project Kibotzer.com, a tool that helps people track their progress toward all sorts of goals.
This is Good Design
I have never owned a body scale and instead have relied on ones at my local gym or doctor's office. Because I know how much weight can fluctuate daily, I never saw a reason to invest in something that I could access every week or so elsewhere. But the thought of having my own wi-fi enabled scale that could upload my weight online was appealing. So, in late November, my own Withings scale arrived in the mail. A well-designed product pays as much attention to packaging design and set up instructions as they do their own product (I'm thinking of Apple here), well Withings delivered!
I put the batteries in the scale, set up my account, and entered my wi-fi network password. Then all I had to do was stand on the scale barefoot to wake it up as it immediately measured and displayed my weight, body fat and BMI in that order. After the weigh-in, the scale sent the measurement to my personal Withings account online. It was that simple.
Fatty Tissue Is Not a Conductor
After about 3 weeks, the scale skipped the body fat measurement but there was no indication as to why. I'm not that invested in the fat mass measurement as I've always heard that measuring body fat can vary widely in bioelectric impedance, the method Withings relies on and others like it (Tanita, for example). But since the device is connected to my online account, I would like to see a smarter engine behind the Withings scale where it sends personalized messages to me based on what's been happening. Something like, "Hey, we've noticed that the fat mass isn't recording. We'd like to suggest a few things you can do to try and fix this. They are..." Next generation product fixes, perhaps?
The Sweet Taste of Integration
Withings shines when it comes to sharing my data. I can publish my weight on the web , on Twitter (130 tweets in the last 24 hours by others using the Withings scale), and on Google Health. Since I have a Google Health account and a Keas account, my Withings weight showed up in my Keas profile. I did nothing but stand on a scale. We're moving toward true integration! Now if I can just get my Keas account to talk to my scale, refrigerator and cupboard.
Does Everything Really Need an App?
Because I can and because it's free, I downloaded the Withings iPhone app, WiScale. Here's what I immediately noticed: interacting with a graph on the iPhone is an enjoyable and tactile experience. Withings does a really good job with their interface design, on the app and on the Web. We need more simple, intuitive and elegant feedback mechanisms like this when it comes to tracking personal data.
Thank you Withings for bringing sexy back to the experience of weight tracking. Looking forward to seeing the next "connected object and associated network platform" that comes out of Withings.