Abstract Improvements in self-tracking technology, particularly the integration of sports performance metrics with health data, have contributed to advancements in athletic performance. Meanwhile, there is a growing attention within HCI to menstrual health that emphasizes the role of technology within bodily experiences. Yet, despite the availability of self-tracking tools for both sports and menstrual health, there is still a gap in HCI which addresses the unique needs of menstruating athletes and the impacts of athletic performance on menstrual cycles and vice versa. To address this gap, we conducted a diary study and interviews with N = 11 runners to demonstrate how self-tracking technology supports menstruating athletes in recognising and navigating the interplay between athletic performance and menstrual cycles. Our results shed light on the challenges and coping strategies of menstruating athletes related to menstruation, and the way tracking tools address them. This paper suggests directions for interaction designers to tackle the challenges of bidirectional impacts of athletic performance and menstrual cycles.

Virtual Assistants (VAs) are at the forefront of state-of-the-art interactions for smart technologies at home. The prospective users’ prior to use perception of such assistants is crucial to discover new possibilities for design and to be able to elicit positive user experiences. However, this has not been investigated in detail within family life in emerging contexts though demand for their ownership increases. This study scrutinises potential users’ initial perceptions about the prospective and anticipated uses of VAs within family life in Turkey, as an emerging context, through in-depth interviews with 15 families. During the interviews, the participant families watched publicly available videos of four different VAs to elicit their perceptions. Results reveal that prospective users’ perceptions and expectations focus heavily on VAs’ possible effects on the family well-being, besides the concerns about usability and issues related to privacy, safety, and security. While proposing VAs for home use in such an emerging market, their potential positive effects on the family well-being should be promoted whereas perceived negative effects should be resolved by considering smartness, personality and trust dimensions. The study reveals relationships between these dimensions and perceptions of and expectations about VA use in home context in an emerging market.

This paper presents a systematic review of online health communities (OHCs) published between 2009 and 2020 in the ACM Digital Library. Aiming to consolidate the current issues, design knowledge, challenges, and tensions in OHCs, our analysis identified four high-level aspects related to the use and design of OHCs: (1) temporal: OHCs as transition spaces, (2) spatial: bridging experiential knowledge with medical expertise, (3) technological: exchanging and locating peer support, and (4) tension dimensions in OHCs. We further discuss methodological improvements and computing opportunities for OHC research and how to increase OHC members’ agency in such a medically dominated context. These findings have the potential to inform future OHC designs and help researchers and designers position future contributions.

Self-reflection is evaluation of one’s inferential processes often triggered by complex social and emotional experiences, characterized by their ambiguity and unpredictability, pushing one to re-interpret the experience, and update existing knowledge. Using immersive Virtual Reality (VR), we aimed to support social and emotional learning (SEL) through reflection in psychology education. We used the case of psychosis as it involves ambiguous perceptual experiences. With a codesign workshop, we designed a VR prototype that simulates the perceptual, cognitive, affective, and social elements of psychotic experiences, followed by a user-study with psychology students to evaluate the potential of this technology to support reflection. Our analyses suggested that technology-mediated reflection in SEL involves two dimensions: spontaneous perspective-taking and shared state of affect. By exploring the subjective qualities of reflection with the said dimensions, our work contributes to the literature on technology-supported learning and VR developers designing for reflection.

Although the prominent concept of the last decade – user experience – maintains its significance in diverse disciplines, especially design, its focus has changed to eliciting positive user experiences by pursuing new possibilities for consumer products rather than by solely seeking solutions to existing problems. Designers continue to aim for rich user experiences with a variety of products, but have neglected self-service (interactive) kiosks. Hence, this paper, after giving a brief overview of the positive psychology literature, demonstrates the dimensions of positive user experiences with self-service kiosks through an empirical study conducted on coffee vending machines and automated tellers.