Disasters in personal informatics: the unpublished stories of failure and lessons learned

Abstract

Though never a desirable outcome, failure is an inevitable part of research. Too often, however, the tried but failed paths are lost in the translation of work to publication. With the pragmatics of publishing (e.g., page limits) and the academic emphasis on positive outcomes, failed processes, methodologies, study designs, and technologies are frequently not disclosed. This is a missed opportunity, particularly for nascent areas like Personal Informatics (PI) as well as other research areas, more generally, that share high costs in time, development, and recruitment for building and deploying testable systems. Thus, we propose a UbiComp2014 workshop focused on failures in PI research. Through short participant authored papers, breakout sessions, madness talks, and all-group discussions, our overarching workshop goals are to share "disaster" stories, reflect on lessons learned, and articulate promising paths forward.