Integrating Population-based Patterns with Personal Routine to Re-engage Fitbit Use

Abstract

In this paper, we explore user reactions to prototypes that integrate population fitness data with personal practice to bolster motivation and help decrease pragmatic barriers to incorporating exercise in daily life. We conducted a study in a major United States based company that makes wearable devices available to their employees through its wellness program. We interviewed each of 26 employees to understand their exercise and tracking habits. Each expressed an interest in improving or maintaining his or her fitness level but was frustrated by not getting appropriate support from the current Fitbit application. Based on the interview findings, we designed four use cases and two prototypes to address the main problems revealed through analyses of the participants' interviews and their Fitbit data. In a second interview probing reactions to they prototype, the same group of users reported a desire for Fitbit to support their daily, dynamic routines and to help them make adaptive, weekly plans. In addition, the participants perceived benefits to leveraging at least one of three different types of personalized reference groups (self, friends, or a population of similar individuals) to increase their motivation and to help incorporate activities into their daily or weekly plans. We discuss design consideration for researchers and designers of personal informatics tools and organizational wellness plans.

Physiolytics at the workplace: Affordances and constraints of wearables use from an employee's perspective

“…Following Mukhopadhyay, Rajiv, and Srinivasan (1997), a technology's disruptiveness manifests in substantial changes of work processes. The introduction of physiolytics at the workplace, as demonstrated by exemplary prototypes in Table 1, exhibits features of disruptiveness due to the fact that it may significantly impact the design and execution of certain work activities (Cheng et al, 2013;Valero et al, 2016) and social structure among employees (Chung & Danis, 2016;Gorm & Shklovski, 2016;Vyas et al, 2015). Given that some of the presented applications scenarios entail severe organizational and cultural changes, considerable insecurities and unpredictable employee behaviour could result (Elie-Dit-Cosaque & Straub, 2011; Lapointe & Rivard, 2005).…”

“…In the same vein, other scholars (Chung & Danis, 2016;Glance, Ooi, Berman, & Glance, 2016;Gorm, 2016;Vyas et al, 2015) have reported on employer-sponsored health programs that include physical activity tracking in order to generally reduce physical inactivity. Physiolytics solutions in these programs, apart from pedometers, additionally include user-centred applications for the definition of goals, the reporting of goal achievements, and for performance benchmarking.…”

Finding the Right Fit

“…While continuous health tracking might help people who want to develop consistent, regular routines of working out, it may not be useful for everyone. In this case, the incentives should be designed to encourage consistency rather than fixed, step-count goals [8]. Short-term events are effective to increase employee attention and to boost activity level in a short period of time [4].…”

Health promotion with physiolytics: What is driving people to subscribe in a data-driven health plan

“…Given the unbound success of wearables, reaching 25.1 million shipped units in the first quarter of 2018 [45], physiolytics is therefore frequently seen as new opportunity to get a grip on the explosion of health expenditure. As opposed to passive forms of information provision, the information collected by sensors may provide users with more accurate and contextualized health advice [20,21] and, if systematically developed, allow the creation of a syndromic surveillance service for monitoring the spread and progress of certain chronic diseases or health-related risks at work [10,[46][47][48]. It may, to the beliefs of certain political forces, lead to a win-win situation where citizens obtain the necessary "personalized" information and motivation needed to positively support health behavior change as well as allow government agencies and other stakeholders of the health care sector-in the first instance, health providers and health insurances-to monitor, control, and possibly alter the population's health according to new evidence from medical research and policy goals.…”