Interesting #CHI2018 Papers

Self-Tracking Reflections

Kirsi Halttu and Harri Oinas-Kukkonen. 2017. Persuading to Reflect: Role of Reflection and Insight in Persuasive Systems Design for Physical Health. Human-Computer Interaction 32, 5–6.

Guided by prior work, the papers identified four constructs that can influence physical activity self-tracking:

• Unobtrusiveness: how well a system fits into the environment in which it is used.
• Credibility: how well a system gave the user’s the feelings of trustworthyness, believability, and reliability.
• Dialogue support: how well a system facilitates the interaction between the user and the system.
• Social influence: how well people within a user’s social circle evaluate the
  a system.

Then, using a survey (n = 147), the authors developed a model that shows how the four factors predict the users’ reflection and insights:

1. Unobtrusiveness, Credibility, Dialogue Support, and Social Influences predict a user’s Attitude towards the system—i.e., user’s satisfaction with the system.
2. Credibility, Dialogue Support, and Social Influences predict Primary Task Support—i.e., whether a user feels that the system support their goal.
3. Primary Task Support and Dialogue Suppport predict Need for Reflection—i.e., whether a user feels the need to reflect on their behavioral data and their feelings.
4. Attitude and Need for Reflection predict Insight—i.e., a user’s awareness of how they feel or behave in certain way.

Structural model with path coefficients and their significances (source).

Quite interestingly, when compared between men and women, Dialogue Support and and Primary Task Support only significantly predicts Need for Reflection among women.

Bodily Experiences During Game Play

Florian Floyd Mueller, Richard Byrne, Josh Andres, and Rakesh Patibanda. 2018. Experiencing the Body as Play. CHI ’18, ACM.

On designing games where the human body is the play instrument, the paper separates the body into the material perspective (Körper) and the lived perspective (Leib). Körper is our physical body. Leib is the feelings and sensations that arise from awarenesses from our body.

For example, when we fell off to the ground, our Körper gets sore, then our Leib became aware the soreness and we experience painful sensations and feel upset. The authors argued that by separating the body into Körper and Leib, we can design engaging games and play.

One example, a game that uses GVS (that simulates the feeling of vertigo) can make the Körper to experience a loss of balance. At the same time, the Leib is aware that the body is not really experiencing vertigo. This led to the feeling of thrilling play.

Things That Make Player’s Choices Felt Meaningful in Interactive Narratives

Glena H Iten, Sharon T Steinemann, and Klaus Opwis. 2018. Choosing to Help Monsters: A Mixed-Method Examination of Meaningful Choices in Narrative-Rich Games and Interactive Narratives. CHI ’18, ACM.

How do we design meaningful experience in interactive narratives? The paper identified three constructs that can make user’s choice felt meaningful:

• the choice has immediate consequences
• the choice has social characteristics
• the choice has moral characteristics

Then—using a quantitative approach—meaningfulness (through the presence of consequential, social, and moral choice), was shown to significantly impact the feeling of appreciation in interactive narratives.