• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.550-566
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• 2017

Recent advances in wearable devices and quantified-self movement increase the number of personal informatics application that may cause an concern to health industry and user. In this light, the goal of this study is to identify more effective ways of design and evaluation of personal informatics application for self-tracking and delivering health information to users. For this goal, this study conducted areal-world study that processes such that user can assess, be aware of, and self-reflect on their data and behavior activity. In doing so, this study aims to determine the psychological effects of forms of health feedback (comparative vs. non-comparative) and presentation modes (text vs. image) on users' tendencies toward health conservation. Results from a between-subjects experiment revealed that health information in a comparative and textual format was more effective in encouraging health conservation in participants than identical information presented in a non-comparative and image format. In addition, participants' level of health consciousness emerged as a significant predictor. Through this analysis of quantitative data and inferences, this study make a number of contributions to the user affordance research and its methodology of health informatics study and designing personal informatics application that support user's behavior change in various contexts.