Paper Reading #7: Experience in Social Affective Applications: Methodologies and Case Study

Comments
Jessica Gonzales
Shena Hoffman

Reference information
Authors: Paul André, m.c. schraefel, Alan Dix, Ryen W. White
Where: CHI 2010

Summary
This paper discussed the designers' application called Healthii, which is a social networking tool for conveying one's state of well-being, primarily used through Facebook and Twitter. Healthii is geared towards allowing users or groups of users to express how they are feeling. A five week user study was done with ten people from their lab to evaluate Healthii as an artefact as well as determine the importance and value gained from expressing well-being.

Currrent methodologies at the time were felt to be unsuitable for their study, so they combined elements from participatory design (inclusion of user input for design decisions) and focus groups (discussion of the artefact between users) with a longitudinal study (long-term study). This meant that the designers could change the artefact during the study based on participants' feedback. Participants would have weekly group meetings when they would discuss their experiences with the application, which the designers intended to spark others' imaginations and memories. By the third week, discussions moved from talk of how each participant was using the tool to the meanings being conveyed in the dimensions. At the end of the study, individual surveys were provided to supplement the weekly group discussions.

The designers give their critique of of their own methodology, admitting that it should not be the best solution for this kind of social and affective application, but ultimately felt it was acceptable for their specific artefact and study.

Preview of the application, showing the 4 dimensions of well-being status, along with a representative avatar

Source: website

Discussion
With social networking on the rise, I think this is a good field of study. I'm very interested in trying it out myself, especially with friends participating as well. I visited their website briefly to read further about the application, and even used the Facebook application. I felt the measurements of each dimension could have had five values, not the three for "not", "quite" or "very", and it seems like users are already posting Facebook and Twitter statuses similar to this, expressing their well-being. Still, a dedicated client or avenue for doing so can be useful, and I think Healthii did this fairly well. The study probably could have lasted longer than five weeks--maybe six or eight weeks, in order to gain a little more insight into the participants' experiences. I liked that the designers employed a hybrid of methodologies since their study was not so standard. I'm interested in seeing what new methodologies may be used, as they concluded.