Abstract
Many digital technologies have been invented to support mindfulness, the practice of bringing attention to the present moment without judgment. While most technologies focus on mindfulness meditation training for novices, in this paper, we explore designing technology to support everyday mindfulness activities for people with varying levels of experience. Through 9 magic machine workshops, 30 mindfulness practitioners explored and reflected on their personal experiences of everyday mindfulness, and generated designs that support their daily practice. Our findings identified six categories of designs conceptualized by our participants: everyday objects, physical spaces, wearables, metaphorical art, companions, and toys. We further analyze the practitioners’ thought processes and considerations for designs that support everyday mindfulness, such as eliciting and regulating emotion and associating mindfulness with routine daily activities. Finally, we discuss the implications of designing individualized mindfulness products and the potential of using co-design magic machine workshops to explore a practical design space.
Introduction
Mindfulness, a practice of bringing attention to the present moment without judgment, has many physical and mental benefits, such as reduced chronic pain, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved emotion regulation when practiced consistently. These well-being benefits have driven the implementation of mindfulness interventions, e.g, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction/MBSR programs, and technologies, e.g., mobile meditation apps, immersive virtual reality environments, and wearables.
Mindfulness can be practiced in both formal and informal ways. While formal mindfulness practice (e.g., sitting meditation) is considered a more rigorous and dedicated contemplative practice, informal practice (e.g., a quick breathing exercise) has the advantage of being more flexible and easier to be integrated into one’s daily routine. In our research, we focused on exploring the potential of future technologies for mindfulness in everyday life, including formal and informal practices, as they both contribute to one’s mental well-being. Our goal is to explore how future technology can support mindfulness as an ongoing personal journey that considers individuals’ prior experiences, wishes, and context of use, toward informing the design of mindfulness products. With a broad view of mindfulness technologies as tools and objects that support mindfulness in various forms, modalities, and scenarios, we hope to inform the design of more effective and personalized mindfulness products. We use the term practitioners to refer to individuals who practice mindfulness in various forms.
Specifically, our research is guided by the following questions:
(1) What is the design space for everyday mindfulness products from practitioners’ perspectives?
(2) What are the practitioners’ thought processes and considerations for designs that support mindfulness?
Teachers perceive their role as "playwrights" wanting to write a script for role-play social situations, ensuring that the chatbot guides students to specific behaviors while allowing students to explore different perspectives. This mindset shapes their needs for levers to further personalized instruction. To give just one example, LLM-Chains enable teachers to customize the chatbot to their class. However, new levers are necessary to allow for more controlled improvisations so students can practice upstanding more concretely, applying their knowledge to commonly encountered situations. We discuss the implications of these findings for designing levers that enhance the instructional value of chatbots for cyberbullying interventions and identify new research questions that still need to be answered in the context of chatbot use for classroom instruction.
Conclusion
