[community] Tracking and recording, or choosing not to track and record

[Hung, Jonathan]

Hi Alan,

I’ve tried different things in the past:
- a daily to-do / habit shaper on my phone
- a note pad to track allergic reactions
- a notebook to track the status of a loved one in a hospital
- a fitbit to track my daily physical activity
- food, water, etc.

Each one is a bit different. Some more successful than others.

The todo app was abandoned after a few weeks of usage. I started feeling guilty for not completing certain tasks, and the passive aggressive notifications by the app (“We have missed you! Come back if you’re not too busy with other stuff.”) made me uninstall it.

The notepad to track allergic reactions was difficult because the information I was recording wasn’t revealing any good data. If there was useful information, it would require too much interpretation / processing to uncover. For example, reactions occur after certain baked goods - is it gluten? what about nutmeg or cinnamon? Eggs? There were too many variables to be useful.

The notebook used to track the status of a loved one in hospital was very useful. Since each family member would visit at different times in the week, we can all keep up to date with what has happened. We would also leave messages or reminders for each other in the notebook (i.e. “On Thursday when Dr. Smith visits, make sure to ask her about the Tylenol.”).

I wear a basic Fitbit which tracks my daily steps and active minutes. I find this incredibly useful as it encourages me to get my 10K step target a day. Even on the days I don’t get 10K steps, if I see the app has recorded 30 “active minutes” I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I also use the app to track my weight (somehow it spikes around November and December annually). It’s interesting to compare the weight chart against the daily step and active minute charts to see how my health / exercise has affected me.

I also play video games and many of them track your achievements and lets you compare with others. I find this entertaining as I can gauge my progress against my friends. Some games track much more detailed information which lets you see how you perform with certain characters in a game.

To answer your questions:

1. What kinds of things do you journal or track about your life?

I currently use a Fitbit to track my wellness and activity. In the past I’ve used other tools for specific events in life (see above).

2. What kinds of tools (digital or analog) do you use to do so?

I use a notebook to track my daily work at the IDRC. And the fitbit. My Google calendar and email archive also serves as a journal.

3. What kinds of journaling or tracking have you tried and abandoned, and why?

I think I covered this above. I think for me my usage pattern is that the tracking / data gathering must be useful (or at least interesting / entertaining) and easy to do. More manual forms of tracking is worthwhile if there’s a significant emotional attachment.

4. Are there things you have considered or wanted to track, but haven't? What kept/keeps you from doing so?

Nothing comes to mind. That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of it.

5. What kinds of things do you have strong feelings about not tracking, and why?

Privacy is my biggest concern. Since much of this is stored digitally on a 3rd party server, I want to have control over how that information is used. I don’t like having my location tracked at all - it gets a bit too close.


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Jonathan Hung, Inclusive Designer
Email: jhung at ocadu.ca<mailto:jhung at ocadu.ca>
OCAD University
Inclusive Design Research Centre


On July 26, 2016 at 12:03:34 PM, Harnum, Alan (aharnum at ocadu.ca<mailto:aharnum at ocadu.ca>) wrote:

Hello inclusive design community,

Part of the Inclusive Design Research Centre's work on Preference Exploration and Self-Assessment (https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/%28Floe%29+Preference+Exploration+and+Self-Assessment) is revolving around metrics, journaling and other "self-tracking" activities. We're obviously interested in a wide variety of dimensions around this and thought we'd throw some questions out to the community…

So if you're comfortable sharing or otherwise have some thoughts along these lines, we're curious about questions like:

1. What kinds of things do you journal or track about your life?
2. What kinds of tools (digital or analog) do you use to do so?
3. What kinds of journaling or tracking have you tried and abandoned, and why?
4. Are there things you have considered or wanted to track, but haven't? What kept/keeps you from doing so?
5. What kinds of things do you have strong feelings about not tracking, and why?

I'll share one from my end to start off: I track my dreams, and have on and off for about fifteen years now. I record:

1. A basic description of what happened in the dream.
2. Basic type of dream: good, neutral, nightmare
3. Keywords for elements or themes that appear (especially if they're recurring ones) like:
* House I grew up in
* Failure in school
* Superheroes

I do this partly because I find it an interesting window into my unconscious mind but also because I have a number of friends who are also interested in their dreams, and we like to talk about them.

ALAN HARNUM
SENIOR INCLUSIVE DEVELOPER
INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE, OCAD UNIVERSITY

E aharnum at ocadu.ca<mailto://aharnum@ocadu.ca>

OCAD UNIVERSITY
100 McCaul Street, Toronto, Canada, M5T 1W1
www.ocadu.ca<http://ocadu.ca/>
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