Designing Self-Tracking Tools that Better Communicate,
Represent, and Understand Bipolar Disorder
Hello and welcome!
What is this study? Recently, there has been a significant increase in personal data tools available for tracking health, productivity, and participation in social networks. The personal data practices enabled by these tools, often referred to as the “Quantified Self” movement, encompass a range of tracking activities associated with self-knowledge, behavior change, and health management. Our research hopes to determine the social and technical requirements necessary to develop a personal informatics system (a smartphone app, for example,) that supports individuals facing bipolar disorder (BD), and allows them to collectively engage with their communities.
Because individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder often also experience stigma, we hope to better understand stigmatizing attitudes about mental health conditions like bipolar disorder, and how these attitudes affect experiences and shape identities. We’re also interested in how self tracking might mediate those experiences. In order to do this, we’re putting together a series of focus groups where we hope to facilitate productive conversations about bipolar experiences and how we can better communicate, understand and represent them.
Recruitment for this study is currently closed, but please feel free to reach out by email (svoida@colorado.edu or bp-study@lists.colorado.edu) if you have any questions about the research or would like to be notified of participation opportunities for future research in this area. You can also check out one of our affiliated studies at the University of Washington.
For information about us, please click here, or go to the “People” tab above.
