Personal Informatics in the Wild: Hacking Habits for Health & Happiness

Call for Participation

Knowing oneself has many benefits, including improving learning, increasing self-control, and promoting positive behaviors. A new class of applications called personal informatics is appearing that help people learn more about their selves, their behaviors, and their habits. This workshop will bring together researchers in a wide range of disciplines to discuss challenges and explore opportunities for human-computer interaction in the growing field of personal informatics.

This is a 2-day workshop. On the first day, participants will split into groups to work together on prototypes. On the same day, we will test and play with these prototypes with a short tour of Paris. On the second day, we will follow the format we have used in the past 3 years: 1) short presentations, 2) group sessions, and 3) plenty of breaks to converse one-on-one with other participants. There will also be a planned meeting with members of the Paris branch of the Quantified Self.

We will discuss technical and design issues related to monitoring and feedback of personal behavioral information. We will discuss different behavioral theories to guide the development of personal informatics systems, and the social implications of self-tracking. We will discuss how to apply lessons learned from past research and existing products on various application domains relevant to improving quality of life, such as fitness, nutrition, wellness, mental health, and sustainability. Key research areas include: ubiquitous computing, life logging, visualizations, persuasive technologies, interaction design, psychology of self-knowledge and self-awareness.

We invite technologists, designers, and behavioral scientists working on topics related to personal informatics. Submit a position paper (2 to 4 pages) in the ACM Extended Abstracts format about your ongoing work, recent results, study methods, or perspectives on personal informatics. Papers will be peer-reviewed and 15-20 participants will be selected by relevance and likelihood of stimulating and contributing to this discussion. Email your paper in PDF format to with subject "CHI 2013 Workshop Submission" by ~~January 11, 2013~~ January 18, 2013.

Note: At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI conference.

Topics of Interest

New and current personal informatics applications and systems on the desktop and online
Sensor and life-logging technologies that monitor various personal behavioral information
Effective feedback techniques, such as visualizations, virtual agents, and persuasive technologies, that help users become more aware of their own behaviors
Interaction techniques that alleviate the burden that personal informatics impose on engagement
Effects of self-knowledge and self-awareness on behaviors and daily life
Methods of conducting long-term studies to determine effects of information on user behavior