People's health goals change as their contexts, needs, and values evolve. Personal informatics (PI) literature recognizes the importance of supporting goal change; however, little is known about how these tools can best support the changes people go through with their goals. To understand how PI are currently involved in goal change, we conducted a survey (N=80) and interview (N=10) study with people who had recently changed their health goals. Overall, we found that PI gave limited support to people during goal changes. Changes were driven by four actors (i.e., who and what influences the goal change): internal motivations, contexts, PI, and social surroundings. We further highlight five factors related to goal change (i.e., the ways in which the actors affect goal change): challenge, self-efficacy, changing priorities, learning, and enjoyment. We discuss how PI could better support people in goal change by considering different implementations and interactions of actors and factors.

Research and technological advancements have driven the development of wearable technology for stress management. Previous reviews primarily focused on its performance and effectiveness in health contexts. In contrast, this review takes a human-centric approach and reviews studies on users’ attitudes and experiences. We conducted a narrative review to identify (1) the facilitators and barriers of wearable stress management technology (WSMT) and (2) design considerations for human-centered WSMT. We identified 28 articles reporting user perspectives on stress management technology, primarily based on evaluation studies in which user perspectives were gathered through qualitative methods. We found five facilitators and barriers of WSMT (i.e., usefulness, functionality/interactivity, seamlessness, user privacy, and technology's image). Additionally, we synthesized 18 design considerations, highlighted two main design challenges, and proposed a value-sensitive approach for future research. This review adds to the HCI literature by demonstrating the complexity of designing human-centered WSMT and the need for actionable recommendations.

Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) is a multifaceted condition that arises from prolonged stays in an intensive care unit (ICU). While preventing PICS among ICU patients is becoming increasingly important, interventions remain limited. Building on evidence supporting the effectiveness of art exposure in addressing the psychological aspects of PICS, we propose a novel art therapy solution through a collaborative Human-AI approach that enhances personalized therapeutic interventions using state-of-the-art Visual Art Recommendation Systems. We developed two Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) personalization methods and assessed their impact through a large-scale user study (N = 150). Our findings demonstrate that this Human-AI collaboration not only enhances the personalization and effectiveness of art therapy but also supports therapists by streamlining their workload. While our study centres on PICS intervention, the results suggest that human-AI collaborative Art therapy could potentially benefit other areas where emotional support is critical, such as cases of anxiety and depression.

Abstract Stress-tracking technology is becoming widely available and accessible, offering non-invasive ways to monitor and regulate stress. Yet, current stress-tracking technology presents stress scores that lack transparency, informativeness, and nuance. This provocation paper discusses five key issues that the current stress-tracking technology should overcome, involving conceptualization, measurements, transparency, interpretation, and responsibility. Next, we provide three directions to overcome these issues and inform better stress-tracking practices and future research. Future stress technology should improve stress response measurements, use better terminology and data visualizations, and increase user involvement and transparency. We conclude that there is a pressing need for designers and researchers to take greater responsibility in creating stress-tracking technologies that are useful, fair and just, and centered around individuals’ needs.

Nature experiences, especially the visual aspects of nature, have been widely used to facilitate relaxation. Fueled by digital technology, simulated visual nature experiences have gained popularity in creating healing environments that induce relaxation. However, while easily applicable, not all nature-imitating visuals lead to relaxation. How to effectively design relaxing visual nature experiences remains largely unexplored. This paper investigates how different nature qualities facilitate relaxing visual experiences and the roles of two personal characteristics (mood and nature-relatedness) play. Through an online survey and interviews, we assessed 16 nature video clips, representing eight distinctive nature qualities, and compared perceived experiences while considering the influence of personal characteristics. The results indicate four types of visual qualities (engaging, instinctive, ambient, and derivative) underlying nature-induced relaxation, and show that nature relatedness influences the degree to which nature video clips elicit relaxation. We discuss design implications for creating personalized digital nature.

To improve people’s lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints . A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.

Research has extensively explored how personal informatics tools can support people's health goal setting practices. To understand the current state and reflect on the future of goal setting in personal informatics, we report the results of a scoping review of 51 papers that use and provide design implications for implementing goal setting. Our review highlights six implications for using goal setting in personal informatics tools (clarity, transparency, flexibility, framing and reframing, personalization, and reflection). We find that goal setting is becoming increasingly complex as the number of goals and their characteristics increase. We discuss these insights and point towards the importance of supporting self-efficacy during goal setting, showing adaptive goal evolution over time, reducing burden during goal setting, and framing goals to understand the complexity of health goals and support a holistic view on goal setting.

Commensality, the act of eating together, is commonly associated with many benefits. Dining solo, in contrast, is frequently connected to adverse effects on a person. There is a growing interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) and design in how innovations can enhance eating experiences by, for example, facilitating commensality. The steadily growing number of people eating alone and the associated risks beg the question of how HCI and design could contribute to and improve the solo dining experience and whether or not mimicking or facilitating commensality is what solo diners want. This two-phased study reports on the context exploration of the multimodal solitary dining experience. In the first phase, we scoped the literature describing the benefits and drawbacks of solo dining and commensality. For the second phase, a digital food diary was developed and completed by six solo diners to collect further insights and user requirements. Photos and annotations collected as part of the food diary were analyzed using content analysis. The results indicate several advantages of eating alone, including feeling relaxed, perceiving solo dining as a moment of self-pampering, and appreciating the cooking experience. Overall, it seems that solo dining is not merely a lack of commensality, but a unique experience in and of itself, where people seem to strive towards finding reverie in eating.

Mobility impairments can prevent older adults from performing their daily activities, which highly impacts quality of life. Powered exoskeletons, which are wearable robotic devices, can assist older adults by providing additional support to compensate for age-related decline in muscle strength. To date, little is known about the opinions and needs of older adults regarding exoskeletons, as current research primarily focuses on the technical development of exoskeleton devices and on groups with more severe mobility impairments such as people with spinal cord injuries. Therefore, the aim of this article is to inform the design of exoskeletons for older adults from a person-centered perspective. Interviews were conducted with seven older adults and six clinicians. Results indicated that exoskeletons can be a valuable addition to existing mobility devices to support older adults during walking and other actions necessary to perform their daily activities. Although reactions towards the concept of exoskeleton technology were positive, older adults did not currently perceive the need for an exoskeleton device. Exoskeletons for older adults should be easy to use; preferably, users should be able to put the device on and take it off independently. Moreover, the appearance of the exoskeleton should be as inconspicuous as possible, as most older adults do not like to advertise their need for assistive devices. At this point in time, the willingness to use exoskeleton technology will depend on personal needs and preferences.

Robots are expected to enter the everyday lives of people to entertain, educate, or support them. It is therefore important that people can intuitively understand the behavior of robots. Oftentimes, the behavior of people is used as a model because of its familiarity. However, it is as yet unclear what the best approach is to design interaction behaviors for non-humanoid robots. In this article, we explore two different approaches toward designing behavior for a service robot. The first concerns the commonly used approach of copying human behavior as closely as possible to the robot ( human-translated ). The second approach was inspired by product design methods. The design of the robot's behavior was optimized for the robot's interaction capabilities and hardware modalities ( robot-optimized ). To evaluate people's responses to the two behavior sets for a tour guide robot, an online video study ( N = 204) and a two-day in-the-wild study ( N > 600) were performed. Results showed that participants responded slightly more positive to robot-optimized behavior and paid attention to robot-optimized behavior for longer. However, participants remembered more details when the robot showed human-translated behavior. Together, the studies show that it is sometimes better for non-humanoid robots to have robot-optimized behaviors rather than human-translated behaviors.