Eliciting Design Insights for Everyday Device Supporting Informal Mindfulness Practices
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Guo, Zhifan
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Abstract
As smart devices increasingly dominate our daily lives, our attention has become increasingly fragmented. While informal mindfulness practices offer a way to restore present-moment awareness naturally integrated into daily activities, most technological solutions, such as meditation apps, paradoxically contribute to smart device distractions. This creates a need to explore alternative approaches that support informal mindfulness practices without relying on screen-based interactions. In this thesis, I examined ways to harmonize technology with focused attention by reconsidering time's role in mindfulness through a series of participatory study sessions. I developed two initial prototypes aimed at supporting mindful moments embedded in everyday living contexts. To gain deeper insights from mindfulness practitioners' embodied experiences and explore specific design considerations, I conducted a participatory design study with ten experienced mindfulness practitioners, inviting them to reimagine their relationship with time and everyday objects beyond screen-based interactions. One selected concept was developed into a working prototype through close collaboration with its original creator. The findings reveal time as a crucial element in mindfulness object design, with participants favoring ambient timing mechanisms over disruptive alerts and suggesting unobtrusive operation based on the nature of informal mindfulness activities.
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2024-12-09
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Thesis (Masters Degree)