React | Wearables and Affective Technology
Although few studies have examined the effects of news on consumers’ affective state (Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007), it is commonly understood that news can and does psychologically impact those who consume it (Sisson, 2016; Singal, 2016; Gregoire, 2015; Davey, 2012) but not always in the ways we might expect (Brutality-Desensitization Process Nearly Complete, 1999).
While affective data has already been utilized for recommender systems (Tkalcic, Kosir & Tasic, 2011), the application of affective feedback to news consumption is an unexplored space. There are no commercial products or applications designed to bring ordinary news consumers awareness of their affective state while consuming news.
Our concept, React, aims to change this.
The primary objective of this project is to see how the introduction of the prototype we develop can lead to human values emerging surrounding the application of affective feedback to news consumption. We endeavor to explore what awareness of affective data might mean to people, and how designers can leverage emerging human values in order to develop socially meaningful applications within this space.
The Process
We took the design thinking process to develop React, starts with the big issue of human values on the application of affective feedback to news consumption each of us comes up with one different ideas that we later vote on. We decided to go with the idea of a wearable that can give feedback to users based on their affection to the news they consume. We split ideas on what functionalities were possible, from a basic awareness device to a news exchange device with people wearing the same wearable.
As with the limited time of the project we immediately jump into the technological survey on building the wearable. We decided to use photon for the main microcontroller due to the small size and the supported interconnectivity it has. For the sensors we were discussing to go with either GSR (galvanic skin response) or a heart rate sensor. The idea of using available wearables occurs but it beats one of the purpose of learning how the device works instead of just focusing on the software side of the development. And so, we decided to go with only GSR sensor to simplify the build instead of using two sensors and differentiate the device from the widely sold wearables in the market.
While waiting for the sensors to arrive, we went to design the interface and functionality for React, a traditional brainstorm session involving a whiteboard, multiple colored markers and a few post it notes made the ideation easier.
The Built
Since we split the team into two, my team mate Kevin and I we handled the front end and software development of the app, while Alyssa & Rena handled the hardware development of React. Setting up database to relay the reading of the sensors were straightforward and the GSR were pretty easy to setup with the accompanying code we got from the module, however problems occurred with the use of photon, we decided to resort to Arduino while it’s bulkier than the photon it does the job better. We soon took both the interface and hardware prototype to test.
User Testing
To understand how user will use the device we conducted a workshop to simulate real-life situation if participants were using the app.
One particular thing we found was that the sensor works and it gave back different values when participants were reading different news but the base value were always different between participant and we were not sure what the feelings participant might have while reading the news. We found out that the main problem right now is how user will react given the opportunity for them to be able to understand the emotional effect news consumption affects them through the use of the app, but how can we design an app that can return a legible emotional response rather than just a series of numbered values to the user.
The Result
React is an application that enables users to have greater awareness of the magnitude of their own reactions to particular news stories. It is comprised of a smartphone app and a wearable bracelet. When the smartphone app is open, the bracelet measures the user’s real-time galvanic skin response (“GSR”), which is indicative of psychological or physiological arousal. This data is then sent to the smartphone app, which provides the user with a more detailed report of their reactions to varying news stories.
How it Works
The bracelet component of React is intended to be worn regularly by users, but it will only turn on once users open the React smartphone app and press “track” after finding a news story to read or watch (and inputting its url). As users consume the news story, the bracelet will measure and visualize their GSR. When they are done consuming the news story, users must “stop” the tracking (which will also turn off the bracelet). The smartphone app will then provide them with a graph of their GSR throughout the duration of their consumption time as well as their average GSR, their high, and their low (out of 10, where 10 indicates the highest level of arousal). Additionally, users may compare their own data to that of other anonymous users who have consumed the same news story.
Consistently using React will build up a history of data for users to reflect on. Users can begin to understand their own reactions within a wider context. Using React while consuming news will bring about greater awareness of the impact (or potentially lack thereof) of specific news as it’s being consumed.
Ambiguity & GSR
There is a lot of ambiguity in GSR because an increase in skin conductance can be the result of either positive or negative stimuli. This ambiguity meshes well with React, as the purpose of the application is not to measure the qualitative nature of arousal, but to instead measure the mere existence of any arousal at all.
Social Component
React compiles all user data for every news story and provides an average “reaction magnitude,” allowing users to compare their own reaction to that of others.
Target Audience
React is primarily intended for people who want to be more aware of the impact (or lack thereof) that consuming particular news stories has on them (and other people). As specific human values are identified after the introduction of our bracelet prototype, our target audience will become narrower. See “Some Preliminary Notes on the Structure of our Project Plan” under “Plan” for more information regarding the scope of this project.
The data React will collect can bring about greater societal awareness of what news requires in order to provoke arousal. This data can therefore be of great use to journalists and researchers. That being said, the application we will develop within this course will be targeted at ordinary news consumers only. We believe that ordinary news consumers must have a personal incentive for wanting awareness of GSR data before such data could even possibly be tracked on a scale large enough to be sufficiently accessible to journalists and researchers. As such, React encompasses personal use and does not extend consideration to more wide-reaching uses of GSR data (though numerous potentialities for such uses certainly do exist).
Context
The initial prototype of React (to be developed before the Week 8 standup presentation) will be constructed in order to deliver awareness to users of their affective state while consuming news stories. The scope of this project, however, extends beyond sheer awareness. We intend to develop a more targeted application that builds on the application we describe above.
There is so much that can be done with the GSR data that React will collect. Possibilities include:
● only showing impactful news stories when users wish to consume them
● making personalized recommendations of “non-numbing” news stories
● utilizing haptic feedback to indicate to users what the average reaction magnitude was to the news story they are consuming as they are consuming it
● and so much more…
The purpose of our intended early release of the initial prototype of the application described above is to allow us to more clearly identify human values that emerge in response to the awareness that this prototype provides. For a clearer explanation of why we have chosen to conduct the project in this manner, see “Some Preliminary Notes on the Structure of our Project Plan” under “Plan,” which provides more coherent justifications in regard to the scope of this project.
What I’ve Learned
I learned that emotional awareness is hazy at best, most participants felt something regarding the news but it can be unclear to them what kind of feelings they have therefore having an emotion sensing technology were less than possible at the moment. By passing the ability to the user to determine and define their emotion each time they had a reaction might help building up a library on the correlational value between the numbers presented by the reading to the news people are reading, but it is still less than ideal to raise people’s awareness on news affection
