skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: A Review of Personal Informatics Research for People with Motor Disabilities
Personal informatics (PI) has become an area of significant research over the past decade, maturing into a sub-field that seeks to support people from many backgrounds and life contexts in collecting and finding value in their personal data. PI research includes a focus on people with chronic conditions as a monolithic group, but currently fails to distinguish the needs of people with motor disabilities (MD). To understand how current PI literature addresses those needs, we conducted a mapping review on PI publications engaged with people with MD. We report results from 50 publications identified in the ACM DL, Pubmed, JMIR, SCOPUS, and IEEE Xplore. Our analysis shows significant incompatibilities between the needs of individuals with MD and the ways that PI literature supports them. We also found inconsistencies in the ways that disability levels are reported, that PI literature for MD excludes non-health-related data domains, and an insufficient focus on PI tools' accessibility and usability for some MD users. In contrast with Epstein et al.'s [36] recent PI review, behavior change and habit awareness were the most common motivation in these publications. Finally, many of the reviewed articles reported involvement by caregivers, trainers, healthcare providers, and researchers across the PI stages. In addition to these insights, we provide recommendations for designing PI technology through a user-centric lens that will broaden the scope of PI and include people regardless of their motor abilities.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2146420
PAR ID:
10399117
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Volume:
6
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2474-9567
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 31
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, Journal of Medical Internet Research)
    Background: Personal health technologies, including wearable tracking devices and mobile apps, have great potential to equip the general population with the ability to monitor and manage their health. However, being designed for sighted people, much of their functionality is largely inaccessible to the blind and low-vision (BLV) population, threatening the equitable access to personal health data (PHD) and health care services. Objective: This study aims to understand why and how BLV people collect and use their PHD and the obstacles they face in doing so. Such knowledge can inform accessibility researchers and technology companies of the unique self-tracking needs and accessibility challenges that BLV people experience. Methods: We conducted a web-based and phone survey with 156 BLV people. We reported on quantitative and qualitative findings regarding their PHD tracking practices, needs, accessibility barriers, and work-arounds. Results: BLV respondents had strong desires and needs to track PHD, and many of them were already tracking their data despite many hurdles. Popular tracking items (ie, exercise, weight, sleep, and food) and the reasons for tracking were similar to those of sighted people. BLV people, however, face many accessibility challenges throughout all phases of self-tracking, from identifying tracking tools to reviewing data. The main barriers our respondents experienced included suboptimal tracking experiences and insufficient benefits against the extended burden for BLV people. Conclusions: We reported the findings that contribute to an in-depth understanding of BLV people’s motivations for PHD tracking, tracking practices, challenges, and work-arounds. Our findings suggest that various accessibility challenges hinder BLV individuals from effectively gaining the benefits of self-tracking technologies. On the basis of the findings, we discussed design opportunities and research areas to focus on making PHD tracking technologies accessible for all, including BLV people. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Land)
    Despite extensive literature on the socio-cultural services of urban open spaces, the role of food-producing spaces has not received sufficient attention. This hampers advocacy for preserving and growing urban agricultural activities, often dismissed on justifications that their contributions to overall food supply are negligible. To understand how the social benefits of urban agriculture have been measured, we conducted a systematic review of 272 peer-reviewed publications, which drew on insights from urban agriculture sites in 57 different countries. Through content analysis, we investigated socio-cultural benefits in four spheres: engaged and cohesive communities, health and well-being, economic opportunities, and education. The analysis revealed growth in research on the social impacts of gardens and farms, with most studies measuring the effects on community cohesion and engagement, followed by increased availability and consumption of fruits and vegetables associated with reduced food insecurity and better health. Fewer studies assessed the impact of urban farming on educational and economic outcomes. Quantifying the multiple ways in which urban agriculture provides benefits to people will empower planners and the private sector to justify future investments. These findings are also informative for research theorizing cities as socio-ecological systems and broader efforts to measure the benefits of urban agriculture, in its many forms. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; (, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies)
    People often face barriers to selecting self-tracking tools that support their goals and needs, resulting in tools not meeting their expectations and ultimately abandonment. We therefore examine how people approach selecting self-tracking apps and investigate how technology can better support the process. Drawing on past literature on how people select and perceive the features of commercial and research tracking tools, we surface seven attributes people consider during selection, and design a low-fidelity prototype of an app store that highlights these attributes. We then conduct semi-structured interviews with 18 participants to further investigate what people consider during selection, how people select self-tracking apps, and how surfacing tracking-related attributes could better support selection. We find that people often prioritize features related to self-tracking during selection, such as approaches to collecting and reflecting on data, and trial apps to determine whether they would suit their needs. Our results also show potential for technology surfacing how apps support tracking to reduce barriers to selection. We discuss future opportunities for improving self-tracking app selection, such as ways to enhance existing self-tracking app distribution platforms to enable people to filter and search apps by desirable features. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Sustainability)
    Rapid growth in the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus literature calls for an assessment of the trajectory and impacts of this scholarship to identify key themes and future research directions. In this paper, we report on a bibliometric analysis of this literature that focuses on (1) examining publication trends and geographic focus of research, (2) identifying research hotspots and emerging themes, (3) assessing the integrated nature of research, and (4) reflecting on major developments and ways forward. We used Elsevier’s SCOPUS database to search for publications from January 2011 to May 2018 on the FEW nexus, and analyzed the final sample of 257 publications using BibExcel and Vosviewer software tools. The analysis showed steady growth in publications since 2011 with a sharp upturn in 2015 and 2016, coinciding with major funding calls. Thematic analysis of abstracts revealed a strong focus on quantitative resource interlinkages with limited attention to qualitative institutional capacities and intersectoral governance challenges. Term co-occurrence network map showed the term “investment” connected with a large number of frequently cited terms, while the term “governance” demonstrated much weaker links. We reflect on how these findings may help us better understand and address the enduring challenge of transitioning from nexus thinking to action. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies)
    null (Ed.)
    The research community on the study and design of systems for personal informatics has grown over the past decade. To take stock of what the topics the field has studied and methods the field has used, we map and label 523 publications from ACM's library, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed. We surface that the literature has focused on studying and designing for health and wellness domains, an emphasis on understanding and overcoming barriers to data collection and reflection, and progressively fewer contributions involving artifacts being made. Our mapping review suggests directions future research could explore, such as identifying and resolving barriers to tracking stages beyond collection and reflection, engaging more with domain experts, and further discussing the privacy and ethical concerns around tracked data. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email