Mobile devices have become a massively prevalent part of everyday life, as their capabilities and functionality have expanded into new domains. One form factor that has attracted recent renewed interest is the smartwatch.  This paper looks at how devices can be used to track the time, and in particular how we can invent new visualisations for timekeeping. It draws on different psychological theories of time to sketch out six new time visualisations, drawing on both old and new timekeeping devices as inspiration. These visualisations address linear time visualisations and cyclical time visualisations. The designs are contrasted with each other, with a final design selected and prototyped on the Apple Watch. The prototype is briefly evaluated through a 48 hour user test with one user. The design is then reiterated upon based on the feedback from this user test. / Mobila enheter har blivit en allt större del av våra vardagliga liv i samma takt som deras kapacitet och funktionalitet har ökat och spridit sig till nya områden. Ett av dessa områden som nyligen fått ett nyfunnet intresse är smarta klockor. Den här uppsatsen tittar på hur mobila enheter och framför allt smarta klockor kan användas för att hålla reda på tiden. Den undersöker framför allt på hur vi kan ta fram nya sätt att visualisera tid. Arbetet bygger på olika psykologiska teorier om tid för att skissa sex stycken olika tidsvisualiseringar, de olika visualiseringarna använder också historiska tidmätningsinstrument som inspiration. Dessa visualiseringar bygger också på ett framtaget koncept om att tid kan ses som konstant eller cyklisk. Designförslagen jämförs sedan med varandra och en slutgiltig design väljs ut. En prototyp för Apple Watch skapas, baserat på den slutgiltiga designen. Prototypen utvärderas genom att en användare bär klockan under 48 timmar. Därefter förbättras och förändras designen baserat på återkopplingen från testet.

abstract: The advent of commercial inexpensive sensors and the advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have brought forth the era of pervasive Quantified-Self. Automatic diet monitoring is one of the most important aspects for Quantified-Self because it is vital for ensuring the well-being of patients suffering from chronic diseases as well as for providing a low cost means for maintaining the health for everyone else. Automatic dietary monitoring consists of: a) Determining the type and amount of food intake, and b) Monitoring eating behavior, i.e., time, frequency, and speed of eating. Although there are some existing techniques towards these ends, they suffer from issues of low accuracy and low adherence. To overcome these issues, multiple sensors were utilized because the availability of affordable sensors that can capture the different aspect information has the potential for increasing the available knowledge for Quantified-Self. For a), I envision an intelligent dietary monitoring system that automatically identifies food items by using the knowledge obtained from visible spectrum camera and infrared spectrum camera. This system is able to outperform the state-of-the-art systems for cooked food recognition by 25% while also minimizing user intervention. For b), I propose a novel methodology, IDEA that performs accurate eating action identification within eating episodes with an average F1-score of 0.92. This is an improvement of 0.11 for precision and 0.15 for recall for the worst-case users as compared to the state-of-the-art. IDEA uses only a single wrist-band which includes four sensors and provides feedback on eating speed every 2 minutes without obtaining any manual input from the user. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Engineering 2019

What does the climate and the body have to do with each other? In some ways, they are widely different. The body is local, individual, a lived experience; the climate is global, collectively felt, and hard to observe in everyday life. In other ways, the body and the climate are inextricably linked. The ways in which we feed, dress and transport our bodies impact the climate, and the climate impacts the ways in which it is possible to feed, dress and transport our bodies. In this thesis, I aim to explore the connections between the body and the climate through two types of digital technology: web tests and apps for assessing and tracking different kinds of metrics related to the body and the climate. I use a theoretical framework centered on how the individual is presented as an arena for constant improvement, and study the interfaces through their different affordances and uses of metaphor. In my analysis, I find that these interfaces position the user as someone who can, and should, do more for both the body and the climate. They also position the user as someone in control and with the power to actually change and/or make an impact. Finally, I discuss two different ways to interpret these results. On one hand, it could be interpreted as a way to empower individuals and encourage them to act for the good of themselves and the world as a whole. On the other hand, the emphasis on individual actions may underplay the need for collective action on a systemic level. I conclude that digital technology for measuring ourselves and our behavior may offer us insights that could strengthen support for collective action, but we need to contextualize data in order to interpret it properly and act accordingly.

[pt] A pesquisa investiga, em determinadas obras da literatura contemporânea, em sua maioria brasileiras, uma tensão entre as noções de contar e de expor, ou, ainda, entre os gestos de narrar, associar eventos e os de reunir e mostrar elementos. Cada vez mais lidamos com arquivos, coleções, inventários, listas, pastas e com interfaces com suas próprias modulações representativas do humano. Cada vez mais produzimos passado e vivemos uma enxurrada de informações no presente, encontrando desafios para construir sentido. A hipótese principal da pesquisa é a de que vivemos uma reformulação na estruturação da experiência, por meio de um diálogo da forma narrativa com a forma do banco de dados, e, na expressão poética, entre o lírico e conceitual. O gesto da pesquisa é olhar para tal mudança por meio de contos, poemas e escritas artísticas que, ao nosso ver, carregam em si sinais desses diálogos e tensões. O corpus de obras literárias trará textos de Alex Hamburguer, André Sant Anna, Diego Pansini, Carol Rodrigues, Marta Barcellos, Nicholas Feltron, Raphael Sassaki, Reginaldo Pujol Filho e do próprio autor, entre outros. / [en] The research investigates, in certain works of contemporary literature, mostly Brazilian, a tension between the notions of counting and exposing, or even between the gestures of narrating and associating events and those of gathering and exhibiting elements. We increasingly deal with files, collections, inventories, lists, folders. We increasingly produce the past and live a flood of information in the present, and we find ourselves in difficulties to make sense of it. The main hypothesis of the research is that we are experiencing a change in the structuring of the experience, from the narrative form to the form of the database and, in poetic expression, between lyric and conceptual. The gesture of the research is to look for such a change through short stories, poems and conceptual poetry that, in our view, carry signs of this transformation. Our literary corpus will bring texts by Alex Hamburguer, André Sant Anna, Diego Pansini, Carol Rodrigues, Marta Barcellos, Nicholas Feltron, Raphael Sassaki, Reginaldo Pujol Filho and the author, among others.

Personal informatics systems help people collect and reflect on behavioral information to better understand their own behavior. Because most systems only show one type of behavioral information, finding factors that affect one’s behavior is difficult. Supporting exploration of multiple types of contextual and behavioral information in a single interface may help. To explore this, I developed prototypes of IMPACT, which supports reflection on physical activity and multiple types of contextual information. I conducted field studies of the prototypes, which showed that such a system could increase people’s awareness of opportunities for physical activity. However, several limitations affected the usage and value of these prototypes. To improve support for such systems, I conducted a series of interviews and field studies. First, I interviewed people about their experiences using personal informatics systems resulting in the Stage-Based Model of Personal Informatics Systems, which describes the different stages that systems need to support, and a list of problems that people experience in each of the stages. Second, I identified the kinds of questions people ask about their personal data and found that the importance of these questions differed between two phases: Discovery and Maintenance. Third, I evaluated different visualization features to improve support for reflection on multiple kinds of data. Finally, based on this evaluation, I developed a system called Innertube to help people reflect on multiple kinds of data in a single interface using a visualization integration approach that makes it easier to build such tools compared to the more common data integration approach.

The increased interest for self-tracking through the use of technology has given birth to the Quantified Self movement. The movement empowers users to gain self-knowledge from their own data. The overall idea is fairly recent and as such it provides a vast space for exploration and research. This project contributes to the Quantified self movement by proposing a concept for visualization of personal data using an avatar. The overall work finds inspiration in Chernoff faces visualization and it uses parts of the presentation method within the project design.   This thesis presents a visualization approach for Quantified Self data using avatars. It tests the proposed concept through a user study with two iterations. The manuscript holds a detailed overview of the designing process, questionnaire for the data mapping, implementation of the avatars, two user studies and the analysis of the results. The avatars are evaluated using Spotify data. The implementation offers a visualization library that can be reused outside of the scope of this thesis. The project managed to deliver an avatar that presents personal data through the use of facial expressions. The results show that the users can understand the proposed mapping of data. Some of the users were not able to gain meaningful insights from the overall use of the avatar, but the study gives directions for further improvements of the concept. / Visualizing quantified self data using avatars

This thesis explores a concept by Sonvox AB called VoiceUp. The concept is that of a mobile application that communicates with a wearable voice measuring device and visualizes voice information in a way that helps singers. Sonvox current main product is VoxLog—a system for long-term voice monitoring, mostly used for research purposes. Sonvox believes that their voice analysis technology could be relevant to a larger audience. The main goal for the thesis is to explore if a wearable voice measuring device could be relevant to singers, and in what ways. To do this, a needs analysis was conducted where song teachers and singers were interviewed. In order to draw statistical conclusions about the occurrence of needs, a survey was conducted where people with an interest for singing were the targeted respondents. Based on the result from the needs analysis, the VoiceUp concept was refined, resulting in an idea of a product that measures and visualizes how much the user sings and speaks with the aim to increase singers motivation to practice singing more regularly. Based on theory related to self-tracking, a design proving the concept was created, resulting in a mockup and a simple prototype. The mockup and the prototype can together be seen as one example of how self-tracking technology could be relevant to singers.

While both public opinion and scholars around the world are currently pointing out the danger of increasingly popular life-logging devices, this book articulates this debate by distinguishing between automatic and manual life-logging approaches. Since new definitions of life-logging have excluded the latter approach and have been mainly focused on effortless life-logging technologies such as Google Glass and Quantified Self applications in general, the second part of this thesis theoretically frames life-stowing.Through extensive etymological research, I have defined life-stowing as a manual and effortful practice conducted by life-stowers, individuals who devote their life to sampling reality in predefined frameworks. As part of this book, an historical overview introduces life-stowers and distinguishes between Apollonian and Dionysian varieties of these practitioners. Lastly, in order to understand the future reception of life-stowing, particularly in relation to digital media, I have disclosed my ongoing life-stowing project to a small audience. / Den samtida samhälls- och forskningsdebatt, där de allt mer populära teknologierna för life-logging ofta framställs som farliga, vidgas och utvecklas i denna bok genom ett särskiljande av automatiska och manuella tekniker för life-loggning. Eftersom nya definitioner av life-loggning i stor utsträckning har exkluderat manuella tekniker och fokuserat på egenmätning som inte kräver så mycket av användaren, såsom GoogleGlass, innehåller avhandlingen också ett teoretisk utforskande av begreppet lifestowing. Genom omfattande etymologisk forskning definieras life-stowing i avhandlingen som en manuell och ansträngande praktik utförd av life-stowers, personer som vigt sina liv åt att samla och spara bitar av verkligenheten enligt fördefinierade ramar. I den historiska översikten introduceras två typer av life-stowers, den Apollonianska och den Dionysiska. Slutligen, för att förstå det framtida mottagandet av life-stowing i relation till digitala medier, presenteras författarens egna life stowingprojekt för en mindre publik.

Global warming has increased significantly over the past decades and at its center, there are human factors which have the greatest impacts on productions of carbon dioxide which is considered as a primary greenhouse gas in development of global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions and, in particular, carbon dioxide emissions are growing significantly to the extent that if no initiatives are taken, it can have dramatic consequences for our future generations and in general for human’s life on Earth, therefore we need means by which we can control and maintain the levels of greenhouse gas emissions and in particular carbon dioxide emissions. One of the efficient solutions that can significantly decrease the levels of carbon dioxide emissions is the construction and development of smart cities. In this context (smart city), individuals can play an important role in reducing the CO2 emissions. By considering the new opportunities that can result from development of Smart Cities and the essential role of information and communication technology (ICT) in such cities, this thesis work tries to introduce the idea of a self-tracking Carbon Footprint mobile application which enables users to keep track of their individual’s carbon dioxide emissions occurred as a result of their daily activities such as eating, transportation, shopping, energy consumption, and etc. in real time. Being able to measure the generated carbon footprint with respect to each of the user’s activities, users will be able to monitor and control it. This monitoring and controlling of one’s carbon footprint can have significant influences in reducing those human factors which result in production of more carbon dioxide gases and consequently more global warming effects.

This Research-through-Design conducted as thesis project within Malmö University Interaction Design Master’s programme is an attempt to bridge the gap between the quantified self and the subjective & collective experiences of the self-tracking for less normative ways of meaning-making of data. In order to accomplish this, it offers a feminist critique of self-tracking and an exploration of new features for self-tracking apps using provotypes to inform the HCI community.