A STUDY INTO DESIGNING AN AMBIENT WATER BOTTLE THAT SUPPORTS USERS' WATER-INTAKE TRACKING PRACTICES

Taking on the challenge of motivating users to drink water regularly, we designed a smart water bottle that can track water intake behavior and inform users about this behavior through ambient feedback. We then conducted two studies to explore the bottle's feedback design from the perspective of users and designers. First, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 prospective users and found that they would like to receive personalized, precise, gamified and reminding feedback. Second, we conducted a design workshop with 13 professional designers to explore the range of visualizations that can be used to give feedback. Analyzing these visualizations, we identified three reminder types (augmenting, restoring and balancing) and six visualization styles grouped according to three dimensions of ambient displays (representation fidelity, notification level, aesthetic emphasis). In this paper, we first explain our water bottle concept along with existing solutions. Then, we report the results of these studies. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of the results for our own work as well as for designing ambient displays aimed at supporting users' water intake tracking practices.

Effects of an ambient learning display on noise levels and perceived learning in a secondary school

Recent reviews addressing the impact of noise exposure in teaching and learning situations conclude negative effects on learning performance. Providing objective real-time feedback on noise is key for teachers and students to adjust it into suitable levels. This experimental work presents the results from a study exploring the visual feedback based on noise level and the impact on students’ (n = 198) perceived learning performance collected in 24 sessions. The results suggest persuasive effects of the ambient display on the groups and an improvement of noise awareness in students. Measurements of perceived learning-performance, and perceived noise were collected and correlated with the objective noise samples concluding poorer perceived learning performance in noisiest groups. Finally, implications for further research as well as lessons learned to moderate noise levels in classrooms using ambient displays are discussed.