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  • TOCHI Ambiguity

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Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

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Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance. / Sanches, Pedro; Hook, Kristina; Sas, Corina et al.
In: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Vol. 26, No. 4, 21, 01.07.2019.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Sanches, P, Hook, K, Sas, C & Stahl, A 2019, 'Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance', ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), vol. 26, no. 4, 21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3318143

APA

Sanches, P., Hook, K., Sas, C., & Stahl, A. (2019). Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 26(4), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3318143

Vancouver

Sanches P, Hook K, Sas C, Stahl A. Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). 2019 Jul 1;26(4):21. doi: 10.1145/3318143

Author

Sanches, Pedro ; Hook, Kristina ; Sas, Corina et al. / Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices : The case of skin conductance. In: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). 2019 ; Vol. 26, No. 4.

Bibtex

@article{d91bd32f90e9473b8153808b2181997f,
title = "Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices: The case of skin conductance",
abstract = "Skin conductance is an interesting measure of arousal level, largely unfamiliar to most end-users. We designed a mobile application mirroring end-users{\textquoteright} skin conductance in evocative visualizations, purposefully made ambiguous to invite rich interpretations. Twenty-three participants used the system for a month. Through the lens of a practice-based analysis of weekly interviews and the logged data, several quite different—sometimes even mutually exclusive—interpretations or proto-practices arose: as stress management; sports performance; emotion tracking; general life logging; personality representation; or behavior change practices. This suggests the value of a purposefully open initial design to allow for the emergence of broader proto-practices to be followed by a second step of tailored design for each identified goal to facilitate the transition from proto-practice to practice. We contribute to the HCI discourse on ambiguity in design, arguing for balancing openness and ambiguity with scaffolding to better support the emergence of practices around biodata.",
keywords = "skin conductance, data, practice theory, proto-practices, wearables, stress, sports, emotion, open-ended design, ambiguity, biofeedback",
author = "Pedro Sanches and Kristina Hook and Corina Sas and Anna Stahl",
year = "2019",
month = jul,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1145/3318143",
language = "English",
volume = "26",
journal = "ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)",
issn = "1073-0516",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",
number = "4",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Ambiguity as a resource to inform proto-practices

T2 - The case of skin conductance

AU - Sanches, Pedro

AU - Hook, Kristina

AU - Sas, Corina

AU - Stahl, Anna

PY - 2019/7/1

Y1 - 2019/7/1

N2 - Skin conductance is an interesting measure of arousal level, largely unfamiliar to most end-users. We designed a mobile application mirroring end-users’ skin conductance in evocative visualizations, purposefully made ambiguous to invite rich interpretations. Twenty-three participants used the system for a month. Through the lens of a practice-based analysis of weekly interviews and the logged data, several quite different—sometimes even mutually exclusive—interpretations or proto-practices arose: as stress management; sports performance; emotion tracking; general life logging; personality representation; or behavior change practices. This suggests the value of a purposefully open initial design to allow for the emergence of broader proto-practices to be followed by a second step of tailored design for each identified goal to facilitate the transition from proto-practice to practice. We contribute to the HCI discourse on ambiguity in design, arguing for balancing openness and ambiguity with scaffolding to better support the emergence of practices around biodata.

AB - Skin conductance is an interesting measure of arousal level, largely unfamiliar to most end-users. We designed a mobile application mirroring end-users’ skin conductance in evocative visualizations, purposefully made ambiguous to invite rich interpretations. Twenty-three participants used the system for a month. Through the lens of a practice-based analysis of weekly interviews and the logged data, several quite different—sometimes even mutually exclusive—interpretations or proto-practices arose: as stress management; sports performance; emotion tracking; general life logging; personality representation; or behavior change practices. This suggests the value of a purposefully open initial design to allow for the emergence of broader proto-practices to be followed by a second step of tailored design for each identified goal to facilitate the transition from proto-practice to practice. We contribute to the HCI discourse on ambiguity in design, arguing for balancing openness and ambiguity with scaffolding to better support the emergence of practices around biodata.

KW - skin conductance

KW - data

KW - practice theory

KW - proto-practices

KW - wearables

KW - stress

KW - sports

KW - emotion

KW - open-ended design

KW - ambiguity

KW - biofeedback

U2 - 10.1145/3318143

DO - 10.1145/3318143

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

JO - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)

JF - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)

SN - 1073-0516

IS - 4

M1 - 21

ER -