Living with Data: Exploring Physicalization Approaches to Sedentary Behavior Intervention for Older Adults in Everyday Life

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Hu, Siying, Zhang, Zhenhao
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Hu, Siying
Zhang, Zhenhao
author_facet Hu, Siying
Zhang, Zhenhao
contents Sedentary behavior is a critical health risk for older adults. Although digital interventions are widely available, they primarily rely on screen-based notifications that can feel clinical or cognitively demanding, and are thus often ignored over time. This paper presents a three-phase Research through Design methodology to explore data physicalization approaches that ambiently represent sedentary data patterns using decor artifacts in older adults' homes. These artifacts transformed abstract data into aesthetic, evolving forms that became part of the domestic landscape. Our research revealed how these physicalizations fostered self-reflection, family conversations, and encouraged active lifestyles. We demonstrate how qualities like aesthetic ambiguity and slow revelation can empower older adults, fostering a reflective relationship with their well-being. Ultimately, we argue that creating data physicalizations for older adults necessitates a shift from merely informing users to enabling them to live with and through their data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_11059
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Living with Data: Exploring Physicalization Approaches to Sedentary Behavior Intervention for Older Adults in Everyday Life
Hu, Siying
Zhang, Zhenhao
Human-Computer Interaction
Sedentary behavior is a critical health risk for older adults. Although digital interventions are widely available, they primarily rely on screen-based notifications that can feel clinical or cognitively demanding, and are thus often ignored over time. This paper presents a three-phase Research through Design methodology to explore data physicalization approaches that ambiently represent sedentary data patterns using decor artifacts in older adults' homes. These artifacts transformed abstract data into aesthetic, evolving forms that became part of the domestic landscape. Our research revealed how these physicalizations fostered self-reflection, family conversations, and encouraged active lifestyles. We demonstrate how qualities like aesthetic ambiguity and slow revelation can empower older adults, fostering a reflective relationship with their well-being. Ultimately, we argue that creating data physicalizations for older adults necessitates a shift from merely informing users to enabling them to live with and through their data.
title Living with Data: Exploring Physicalization Approaches to Sedentary Behavior Intervention for Older Adults in Everyday Life
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11059