Is Going Unnoticed More Socially Acceptable?: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Social Acce

Abstract

While  fitness  trackers  are  becoming  increasingly  popular,  the  majority  of  such  devices  are  relatively  smaller  and  almost  always  worn  around  a  user’s  wrist  (e.g.,  smart  watches).  To  expand  the  potential  of  novel  design  options  for  such  devices,  a  study  explored  the  link  between  social  acceptability  and  device noticeability, in conjunction with two other factors; namely, the device size  and  the  on-body  location  (i.e.,  on  which  body  parts  the  user  wears  the  tracker). The central question we investigated was: to develop a socially accept-able fitness tracker, should the device be less noticeable? For this exploration, an  online  questionnaire  was  distributed  (N =  32),  and  results  indicated  that  noticeability  was  correlated  with  social  acceptability  only  in  two  situations:  i)  when  the  fitness  tracker  is  large,  or  ii)  when  a  female  user  wears  it  around  their chest. That is, noticeability partially accounted for social acceptability only in  these  conditions.  Jointly,  the  results  point  toward  the  great  possibility  for novel design ideas of fitness trackers in other conditions (e.g., when the device is smaller or worn around the arm) without compromising social acceptability.

Citation

Sakamoto, Y., Irani, P., & Hasan, K. (2020). Is Going Unnoticed More Socially Acceptable?: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Social Acceptability and Noticeability of Fitness Trackers. Human Computer Interaction and Emerging Technologies: Adjunct Proceedings from, 117.

Bibtext Entry

@article{sakamoto2020going,
  title={Is Going Unnoticed More Socially Acceptable?: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Social Acceptability and Noticeability of Fitness Trackers},
  author={Sakamoto, Yumiko and Irani, Pourang and Hasan, Khalad},
  journal={Human Computer Interaction and Emerging Technologies: Adjunct Proceedings from},
  pages={117},
  year={2020}
}