Abstract
The pervasive presence of data in personal wellbeing technology highlights the need to understand how people perceive and interpret their data. Currently, health devices are marketed towards younger, active individuals, while technology for older people is focused on monitoring their frailty. Human-Data Interaction (HDI) suggests making data more legible and negotiable and highlighting people’s agency. However, most HDI initiatives are researcher/designer-led, and what their users make of their data is unclear. To understand how HDI manifests in everyday life, we engaged four older couples in 6-8 days of home trials of a clinical-grade smartwatch, diary studies, and co-design workshops. Our analysis revealed how data is collaboratively experienced, negotiated, and personalised, and how new embodied data representations can reshape experience. We contribute lessons from older adults’ perspectives and the approach of Data as Co-experience as a way to rethink designing data-driven systems based on how people interact with data — the way that data is generated, represented, experienced, shared, discussed, and understood.