Paper Title

This Watchface Fits with my Tattoos: Investigating Customisation Needs and Preferences in Personal Tracking

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Wearable device customization and personal information tracking
• Keywords: Smartwatch, personal informatics, customization, physical activity, data visualization

Research Background and Issues

• Problems or Challenges:
  • Personal tracking tools often assume user needs and preferences, making data collection and representation difficult to meet individualized requirements.
  • Users may abandon devices in practice due to mismatches with their needs, difficulty in reflecting on data, or high learning barriers for the tools.
• Significance:
  • Devices like smartwatches are widely used (e.g., 40% of adults in the U.S.), offering comprehensive health monitoring data. Therefore, designing new tools that support customizable data tracking to address evolving long-term needs is particularly important.
• Research Motivation:
  • To deeply understand how, when, and why users customize tracking tools in practice and provide a basis for designing future smart devices that better support customization.
  • To explore ways to integrate data with personal style, supporting the evolution of long-term tracking interests and goals.
• Related Work:
  • Early studies explored stage models of personal informatics systems and tool selection models but rarely focused on the practices behind wearable technology customization.
  • Some prototypes (e.g., OmniTrack and Trackly) demonstrated the strong potential of customization but still faced design challenges such as "goal creep."

Solution

• Proposed Approach:
  • Using the display customization options of commercial smartwatches as a research perspective, this study investigates how 386 users customize their device interfaces in daily life through surveys and interviews.
• Innovations:
  • Expands existing personal informatics research by studying how users balance data construction, visual aesthetics, and personal meaning.
  • Proposes low-barrier design tools to better support users in customizing their device interfaces.
• Implementation Steps:
  • Conducted two studies: a survey (368 participants to collect broad usage data) and an interview study (18 participants to delve into how they select and adjust watchfaces).
  • The survey gathered data on users' preferred watchface features, usage duration, and replacement frequency. The interviews focused on the motivations behind customization and how watchfaces are selected.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  • Types of Customization:
    1. Data Customization: Selecting key health metrics (e.g., heart rate, step count) to optimize information readability.
    2. Aesthetic Customization: Matching patterns and colors to user style for a visually comfortable interface.
    3. Personal Meaning Customization: Incorporating personal photos, interests, or expressions supporting specific social issues into the watchface.
  • Motivations and Frequency of Customization:
    • Users fall into two categories: frequent changers (due to environmental changes) and long-term single watchface users (due to stable preferences).
    • Users frequently change watchfaces during the initial exploration phase to clarify needs and preferences but eventually stabilize their choices.
  • Integration of Data and Meaning: Data can often be combined with personal interests (e.g., linking step count goals to a game character's health bar).
• Advantages and Comparisons:
  • Compared to existing solutions, this approach provides users with a higher degree of customization freedom, especially by introducing pathways for multi-dimensional personalized watchface design.
• Experimental and Evaluation Results:
  • Data shows that users highly value the balance between data prioritization, clarity, and aesthetics. Low-barrier design tools help users independently customize personalized watchfaces.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • Limitations:
    • The sample is biased toward Western countries and may not fully reflect global user behavior.
    • The study primarily focuses on Fitbit devices, excluding practices of users with other brands.
  • Future Directions:
    • Design simpler tools to support users in creating watchfaces that integrate personal data and aesthetic meaning.
    • Explore the application of other watchface types in tracking goal evolution, such as solutions similar to iOS lock screen random display designs.
    • Promote research on culturally diverse populations to uncover cross-cultural differences in customization practices.

Conclusion

This paper explores the issue of smartwatch watchface customization, revealing how users support personal tracking goals and maintain tracking interest through visual aesthetics and data customization. The study provides directions for future development of personal informatics tools focused on customization, particularly in the integration of data visualization and personal meaning.