Decorative, Evocative, and Uncanny: Reactions on Ambient-to-Disruptive Health Notifications via Plant-Mimicking Shape-Changing Interfaces

Title of the Paper

Decorative, Evocative, and Uncanny: Reactions on Ambient-to-Disruptive Health Notifications via Plant-Mimicking Shape-Changing Interfaces

Paper Information

• Field of Study: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), health notification design, shape-changing interfaces
• Keywords: Shape-changing interfaces, ambient information systems, self-tracking, health notifications, personal data, design research, human-plant interaction

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems:
  1. Existing health-related notification systems (e.g., Fitbit or medication reminder apps) are often ignored or fail to adapt to users' complex daily routines.
  2. Health activities are typically important but not urgent, requiring notification systems that maintain visibility without disrupting users.
  3. Single-level notifications lack flexibility, potentially leading to notification fatigue or users ignoring reminders.
• Significance: Health activities are directly tied to users' daily lives, such as timely hydration, physical activity, or medication intake. Designing a system that encompasses both ambient notifications and dynamically adopts disruptive notifications can help users maintain healthy habits more effectively in complex contexts.
• Research Motivation: To design an "Ambruptive" technology (ambient-to-disruptive), a system capable of transitioning from ambient to disruptive notifications to meet user needs in varying urgency contexts.
• Related Work:
  1. Previous research has explored health notifications, Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI), and shape-changing interfaces, but lacks a unified design framework combining ambient and disruptive notifications.
  2. Plant-inspired designs have been used to convey health-related information, but these are typically limited to non-disruptive notifications and do not explore dynamic notification level systems.

Solution

• Proposed Method:
  1. Employ a "Research Through Design" approach to develop a plant-mimicking shape-changing interface (Shape-Changing Interface, S-CI) prototype.
  2. Utilize large-scale movement and speed variations in the shape-changing mechanism to simulate notifications transitioning from ambient to disruptive.
  3. Design a user interview framework with video demonstrations to explore user reactions to the "S-CI" experience.
• Innovations:
  1. Define and implement the new concept of "Ambruptive" technology, a system capable of dynamically adjusting notification interference levels.
  2. Base the design on the natural aesthetics of artificial plants, integrating abstract data notifications into daily environments while achieving varying levels of visibility through shape changes (e.g., drooping or rapid swaying).
• Implementation Steps:
  1. Use CAD design and 3D printing to create plant-mimicking devices and shape-changing mechanisms.
  2. Develop control code for the device to achieve different notification movement patterns, including "gentle sway," "vigorous shaking," "drooping," and "trembling."
  3. Recruit participants and conduct video demonstration sessions via Zoom to study user habits and psychological responses to the design.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  1. Defined "Ambruptive" technology, clarifying the design logic for notification levels that change over time and urgency.
  2. Collected user responses to the notification mechanisms of plant-mimicking shape-changing interfaces, including interpretations of abstract movement styles and evaluations of "natural/unnatural" aesthetics.
  3. Identified contextual factors influencing users' acceptance of notifications, such as activity importance, time sensitivity, and behavioral inertia.
• Comparative Advantages:
  1. Unlike traditional single-level notification systems, "Ambruptive" technology provides flexibility through gradual notifications, avoiding notification fatigue.
  2. Expanded the field of plant-themed health intervention design, enabling notification devices to possess environmental adaptability and emotional resonance.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  1. Users recognized gentle swaying as ambient notifications but expressed discomfort with pronounced jumping or "breathing-like" movements, even experiencing the "uncanny valley" effect.
  2. Users acknowledged the necessity of notification escalation in certain contexts, especially when activities are time-sensitive or have serious health consequences.
  3. Users preferred devices with decorative functionality to mitigate potential periods of non-use, adding stable elements to the environment.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  1. Certain shape-changing mechanisms (e.g., "breathing") triggered user discomfort, necessitating research into specific design parameters to reduce negative emotions.
  2. The current study is limited to video demonstrations rather than actual usage experiences; future research should integrate devices with real health data for long-term testing in natural environments.
  3. The "Ambruptive" technology design could be further expanded to include more sensors and output modalities (e.g., sound or light) to explore the impact of new notification mechanisms on user behavior.

Summary and Recommendations

• Isolate design elements to reduce users' emotional burden, such as avoiding overtly biological forms that may lead to "excessive empathy" or "uncanny valley" effects.
• Enhance the installation flexibility and environmental adaptability of notification devices, particularly for varying needs in home and office settings.
• Explore how to design privacy-protecting open notification systems that ensure personal health information security while respecting the privacy of other users in shared spaces.