Designing for the Changing Body: A Feminist Exploration of Self-Tracking Technologies

Sarah Homewood

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapterArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Our bodies are in a constant state of flux. Self-tracking technologies are increasingly used to understand, track and predict these fluxes and physiological processes. This paper outlines ongoing research that investigates the mediating qualities of self-tracking technologies. As physiological fluxes and processes are more commonly experienced by women, and have been historically used as a tool for subjugation, a feminist perspective and methodology is applied within this research. Methods including research-through-design and speculative and critical design are used to test the hypothesis that through speculating on the design of self-tracking technologies, valuable knowledge can be contributed to the fields of HCI and interaction design in relation to subjects such as the societal taboos and prejudices surrounding the notion of the changing body, privacy of biodata and how identity and sense of self is shaped through the act of self-tracking.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationExtended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Publication date20 Apr 2018
Article numberDC11
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4503-5621-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Apr 2018

Keywords

  • Self-tracking
  • women’s health
  • research-through design
  • feminist HCI
  • menstrual cycles
  • menopause

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