Appreciation of Living: Bringing
Chinese Aesthetics into Personal
Informatics Design
Abstract
Bin (Tina) Zhu
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden
[email protected]
Xiaojuan Ma
Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab
Hong Kong Science Park,
Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
[email protected]
Yanqing Zhang
We explore how Chinese Aesthetics might bring new
concepts to HCI, specifically health related personal
Informatics (PI). Different from the goal-oriented
perspective, we study how Taoist philosophical concept
“Naturalization of humans” directs the design practice
to create a holistic, harmonious experience through
encouraging aesthetic appreciation of the living. We
compare two design cases Fish’N’Steps and YU given
that they use a similar representation but for totally
different motivations and goals. Design implications are
drawn to inspire future interaction design.
Stockholm University
Stockholm, Sweden
Author Keywords
[email protected]
Chinese Aesthetics, Taoism, Personal informatics,
Health, Wellbeing, Appreciation, Body, Experience
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g.,
HCI): Miscellaneous.
Introduction
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI’15, April 18 – 23, 2015, Seoul, Korea.
ACM
Humans have a long history of pursuing the idea of
“Know Thyself,” from the inscription of "Gnothi
seauton" at ancient Greek temple, to the statement of
“Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true
wisdom” in Tao Te Ching, to what William Shakespeare
wrote in Halmet “This above all, to thyne own self be
true.” Natural and social scientists in various fields have
been exploring how human body and mind function and
how humans behave using theoretical and empirical
methods. Emerging Personal Informatics Systems
which are powered by pervasive sensor and mobile
technology make such knowledge more readily
accessible to ordinary people.
Personal Informatics (PI) concerns about collecting
personally relevant physical, psychological and
behavioral information for the purpose of selfawareness, self-monitoring, and self-reflection [3,4,9].
1
Many existing PI systems take a technology-centric,
data-driven approach and are often goal-oriented. With
the help of mobile and wearable devices, these systems
allow users to keep track of their bio-medical status
and daily activities via numbers and graphs, in other
words, to “quantify self” [7]. For example, motion
sensors can record how many steps one has walked
and how many hours one has slept (e.g Fitbit).
Wearable heart rate and blood oxygen monitors (e.g. in
Withings Pulse) can measure one’s vital signs. GPS,
camera and microphone can provide further contextual
information regarding one’s habits and activities. By
working with data, users can gain a more analytic
understanding of their body and mind, and can make
more rational decisions to promote certain behavior or
lifestyle [4].
Although quantifying self is an intuitive method for
individuals to assess their performance and progress
1 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/projects/activity-trackers.
towards certain goals, many users of PI systems found
the data sparse, noisy, sometimes hard to interpret,
and difficult to form a big picture [4]. Therefore, there
is a rising trend of shifting from personal analytics to
knowing thyself from a holistic view. Instead of setting
a goal for their users, the experience-oriented PI
systems try to engage people in the appreciation of
living [11]. Similar to what was proposed in Tao Te
Ching, the hedonic design of PI would like users to keep
their mind from judging and being led by the senses
and desires; rather, it encourages exploration and
aesthetic appreciation of human body and mind.
Holistic Experience-Oriented Personal
Informatics Design
Researchers, designers, and artists have been exploring
the design space of holistic experience-based
presentation of personal informatics. Such
presentations can take a variety of forms. For example,
Khut et al. put up several installations of simple
geometric visualization of real-time heart and breath
rate data [2]. Inspired by the philosophy of
Somaesthetics [13], Schiphorst et al. designed the
Exhale exhibition [12], which looked into the empathic
nature of breath sharing in a network of people.
Participants could feel one another’s breath via
vibrators sewed into the wristbands and speakers
embedded in the fabric of sensually evocative skirts.
Instead of having participants watch out for anomaly in
their own vital signs, these projects guided them to
enjoy the beauty and excitement of living.
Similar thinking can be found in Eastern Philosophy.
Instead of using simple design of abstract or physical
representations as the projects mentioned above,
influential Chinese philosophers in Taoism Laozi and
Zhuangzi proposed the idea of self-realization, i.e.
projecting the self to the nature and tracing all
manifestation back to the origin of all external forms.
Naturalization of Humans
Zhuangzi is one of the most important figures in the
Taoist school of thinking (Taoist metaphysics). He
suggests a “naturalization of humans”, which requires
that “men should not only have a close emotional
relationship with nature, but also that our bodily form
should directly resemble nature”[8]. This
“naturalization” means casting aside our animal nature
to work actively in accordance with the principles of
nature[5]. The famous Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream
(Figure 1) is a good illustration of blurring the boundary
between human being and the nature.
Figure 1. A Chinese painting depicting
Zhuangzi’s butter fly dream
(http://www.thephilosopher.co.uk/butter.htm).
Chinese Aesthetics embraces the idea of naturalization,
resonating everyday experiences with the nature. For
instance, animals or plants are a common metaphor of
the artists themselves in Chinese ink paintings (Figure
1). Artists attune themselves to inspiration — a
moment in which natural and spiritual beauty converge
– in such practices.
Metaphorical Display in Goal-Oriented
Personal Informatics Design
This idea is different from the existing metaphorical
design of PI information display, such as the fish tank
in Fish’N’Steps [6] and the growing tree and polar
bears in Ubigreen [1]. While naturalization stresses
resonation rather than evaluation, these metaphorical
depictions, usually aesthetically pleasing, tend to draw
a clear distinction between “good” and “bad” conditions
with the goal of directing users to achieve a desirable
state.
Take Fish ‘N’ Steps, a fish tank-like virtual pet social
game to display pedometer data, as an example. The
appearance, emotion, and movement of the animated
fish avatars reflects users’ progress towards meeting
their daily walking goal. A fish would smile if its user
has taken enough steps, and cry otherwise. People
compete to see who owns the “healthiest and happiest”
fish in the tank. Following Prochaska's Transtheoretical
Model of Behavioral Change, this type of intervention
promotes target behaviors by increasing users’
awareness and creating a social context that is both
cooperative and competitive. Evaluation showed that
the game was fun and engaging, but many users who
failed to conduct the desired behavior got discouraged
and lost a sense of attachment to their virtual pets
(crying, not growing fish). In addition, competition can
be an incentive or a cause of stress.
Figure 2. YU: an all-in-one
installation that includes three parts: a
These effects are commonly seen in evaluative, goaloriented designs. Therefore, we propose a new way of
conceptualizing our health data, which intends to
improve users’ quality of life through “appreciation of
living”. The experience of living with data is highlighted
through our design case YU[15].
element. We designed the interface (Figure 2) in the
game engine Unity 3D to visualize and render a user’s
bio-data in real time. By doing so, live video clips of a
dynamic fish swimming in the water are generated.
Meanwhile, users can hear the cicada calls and the
sound of water when the fish moves.
YU: a Naturalization Design of Personal Data
This design has its root in the Chinese culture and
aesthetics. The word for fish, “YU 鱼” in Chinese, is a
YU is an interactive display of the pulse and heart rate
variability (HRV) data. We also create a virtual “fish”
avatar as the carrier of health information in YU, but we
design it to be a hedonic experience of wellbeing as
inspired by Chinese aesthetic theories of naturalization.
sensing unit, a monitoring unit, and a
display unit.
YU is a portable all-in-one installation that includes
three parts: a sensing unit, a monitoring unit, and a
display unit (Figure2). The sensing unit is a pulse
sensor on the top of a box. The monitoring unit is a
screen embedded on the side of the box. And the box
itself encloses a projector as the display unit. When
people put a hand on the box, the system will measure
pulse and HRV (heart rate variability) and visualize
them on the screen. People can also display the
interface in their surroundings, for instance on the wall
(Figure 3). Additionally, we created another prototype
where the fish can be projected in the real water of a
fish bowl and appears to be a real fish (Figure 3).
To highlight the differences between metaphorical
representation in goal-oriented design and
naturalization in experience-oriented design, we
compare YU to Fish’N’Steps from various aspects.
Figure 3. Two alternatives of displays
Representation
The display of YU consists of a swimming fish in a Zen
pond in Chinese ink painting style. It has no numeric
homophone for "abundance" and "affluence". Fish is the
symbol of good fortune and peace in many Zen stories.
Red fish in particular represents success, love and
domestic felicity. It is no wonder that fishponds often
appear in Asian gardens. Fish such as koi, are treated
as pets or treasured possessions by their owners.
Drawing upon these rich symbolic meanings, YU used a
fish as the naturalized metaphor to represent people’s
bodies and their wishes for wellbeing.
Different from the cartoon-style fish in Fish’N’Steps,
YU’s Chinese ink painting-like display brings to users a
peaceful experience. It lets users immerse in the
beauty of Zen through abstract forms, texture and
effects with the fewest possible lines and tones.
Importantly，It captures the spirit of the subject matter
rather than simply reproducing the appearance.
It is worth noting that the facial expression of the fish
is eliminated in our design case, since it is usually
perceived as an indicator of subjective judgment and
personal attitude of the designers and may backfire.
Reflecting upon lessons from Fish’N’Steps, instead of
diagnosing abnormal condition or stress level, YU leads
users to feel the vitality in pulse and HRV data.
Mapping
In accordance with our design concept of appreciating
the living, the display of YU does not show any
numbers or signs indicating positive, negative or
standard body status. Instead, we offer users an
enjoyable and holistic view to perceive their bodily
status through a metaphorical display. The velocity of
the fish’s movement maps to a user’s pulse. The
number of bubbles and the opacity of the fish maps to
SDNN (Standard Deviation of Normal to Normal
intervals) and HRV, which are two significant indicators
associated with regulating the function and selfadjustment capability of the Autonomic Nervous
System (ANS). From the raw data to the display, YU
adopts a counter-intuitive mapping, which means that
one will see a calm fish if one’s heart rate is in a high
value or an active fish if one’s heart rate is slow.
This design principle resonates with Chinese
philosopher Zhuangzi. As he argued, distinctions
between good and bad, or positive and negative are
perceptions rather than really existing. Opposite or
contrary forces are actually complementary,
interconnected and interdependent in the natural world.
These complementary forces interact to form a
harmonious and dynamic system in which the whole is
greater than its parts [14]. He encouraged people to
take an aesthetic and positive attitude to appreciating
their bodies.
In the design of YU, the fish plays the role of the
complementary force of the participant’s body. We
present the opposite experience through the fish for
people to perceive, appreciate and self-regulate
through the process of biofeedback.
Feedback
In the user study of YU, participants expressed their
interest and curiosity of mirroring their body as a fish.
As they described the experience of interaction, they
felt a strong sense of presence at the moment. A
participant (59, Male, Chinese) considered the fish to
be a dynamic display of his body. As he said, he was
experiencing his heart rate in the course of observing
the fish. It was unprecedented for him to enjoy the
pattern of his heart rate variability and appreciate the
rhythm of the body. We can interpret this appreciation
in two ways. First, the mapping keeps participants’
heart rate variability in a dynamic balance. Second, the
mapping doesn’t show any positive or negative
diagnosis. One will see a calm fish if one’s heart rate is
high or an active fish if one’s heart rate is low. This
kind of display doesn’t provide people with any normal
or unhealthy alert. All the physiological changes are
natural which should not be judged as positive or
negative.
This design principle was drawn from the concept of
Harmony from Chinese aesthetic theory, especially
from Zhuangzi’s thoughts. As he claimed, the human
body is a good example of such a harmonious and
dynamic system. Ups and downs, stress and depression,
are as natural as the four seasons which should not be
judged as positive or negative. “Be warm like the
spring with all things” [16]. The feedback from the
participants fulfilled our expectations that Yu can help
to regulate individuals to some extent through
interconnection with the “fish” as the complementary
force of the human body.
Design Implications
Based on the comparison of two wellbeing-related
design cases Fish’N’Steps and YU, we summarize
several strategies with influence of Eastern philosophies
that can be employed in future personal health
information design:
§
Value is the start point of designing everything.
Opening the mind and embracing the body through
appreciating it instead of controlling it can bring
more insights and design alternatives. Chinese
Aesthetics and Taoism inspire a holistic experienceoriented design thinking for personal informatics.
§
Naturalization of humans, the concept from eastern
philosophies, which can be applied by the design of
living representations to achieve the affinity
between participants and the displays.
§
Various means of mapping, which can create
different and rich experiences. Direct way of
mapping may bring unnecessary stress and kill
people’s imaginations and interests. In some
contexts, reversed mapping trigger reflections and
reactions that benefit to the wellbeing.
Conclusion and Challenge
Chinese philosophies have inspiring insights into
experience-oriented design of personal health
information that encourages exploration and aesthetic
appreciation of living. By comparing two design cases
Fish’N’Steps and YU, we propose how the philosophical
concept “Naturalization of humans” can direct the
design practice to create a holistic, harmonious
experience. In addition, evaluating experience-oriented
design can be challenging. Whether and to what extent
users learn to appreciate living via interacting with the
design can be subtle, personal, and incremental. We
expect more explorations in this promising domain.
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