Living with Data: Exploring Physicalization Approaches to Sedentary Behavior Intervention for Older Adults in Everyday Life

TL;DR

This study investigates ambient data physicalizations to address sedentary behavior in older adults by employing a three-phase Research through Design process (ethnography, stakeholder discussion, and in-situ deployment) to develop CushLumi, an ambient cushion-and-lamp system. By decoupling sensing from display and using atmospheric, metaphor-rich feedback, the work demonstrates reduced data anxiety, increased user agency, and reflective engagement with personal health data. Key contributions include empirical insights on designing for living with data in domestic environments, design implications for future tangible health technologies, and a shift from informing to enabling ongoing, autonomous interaction with wellbeing data.

Abstract

Sedentary behavior is a critical health risk for older adults. Although digital interventions are widely available, they primarily rely on screen-based notifications that can feel clinical or cognitively demanding, and are thus often ignored over time. This paper presents a three phase Research through Design methodology to explore data physicalization approaches that ambiently represented sedentary data patterns using decor artifacts in older adults' homes. These artifacts transformed abstract data into aesthetic, evolving forms, that became part of the domestic landscape. Our research revealed how these physicalizations fostered self-reflection, family conversations, and encouraged active lifestyles. We demonstrate how qualities like aesthetic ambiguity and slow revelation can empower older adults, fostering a reflective relationship with their well-being. Ultimately, we argue that creating data physicalizations for older adults necessitates a shift from merely informing users to enabling them to live with, and through, their data.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: The schematic diagram of the CushLumi System: A Cloud-Based Smart Home Lighting System Driven by Cushion Sensors. The system consisted three parts: A) a Sensing Cushion and C) an Ambient Light lamp, which are the two physical artefacts users directly engage with, and C) a cloud‑based processing component that acts as an invisible bridge, receiving sit/stand events from the cushion and driving the lamp’s gradual light changes and celebratory animations. Whenever a user sat on the cushion, its deformation was detected and the system began tracking the duration of one's sitting. This information was then used to change the lamp's hue and light intensity to motivate the user to stand up and move around.
• Figure 2: The the technical implementation of the CushLumi System. At A) the physical layer, a sensing cushion detects when an older adult sits or stands and streams bend events to the cloud, while a separate ambient lamp displays the current sedentary state. B) The adaptive layer translates raw bend events into higher‑level sitting states: a bend listener detects cushion deformation, a timer tracks sit duration, and a notifier evaluates when gentle prompts or celebrative feedback should be issued. C) In the cloud layer, parsed sensor data are synchronized and used to drive a light controller that gradually increases the lamp’s brightness and shifts its colour from warm white toward red as uninterrupted sitting accumulates, and then briefly plays a colourful animation when the person stands.
• Figure 3: The components of the CushLumi system. The CushLumi system major used Particle Photon microcontrollers, which was programmed in C++, to process real-time data from the flex wiring sensors and control the LED circle. The wireless communication between the hardware components was controlled using Particle's cloud platform. IFTTT was also used for time-based, and remote control, of the system to prototype simple remote and time-based control of the device (e.g., muting or unmuting the light via a phone widget or scheduled applet).
• Figure 4: The light behavior logic of the physical data representation in the CushLumi system. This figure shows a participant leaning on the Sensing Cushion and examples of the feedback provided by the Ambient Lamp, which changed depending on the duration of time one was sitting or leaning on the cushion. Crafted from warm-toned wood to blend into the home, it translates sedentary time into a gradually brightening ambient glow across three intensity levels. Upon standing, the device does not turn off but instead shines a pleasant color through laser-cut patterns (e.g., a stretching figure), acting as a positive reward and a gentle, suggestive cue for the user’s next activity.
• Figure 5: The materials used during the Phase 2 poster demo discussion session, where (a) show intervention concepts of potential scenarios and user actions. (a) and (b) also depict user feedback on sticky notes that were later used during affinity diagramming to analyze key themes.