Combining momentary and retrospective self-reflection in a mobile photo-based journaling application

Abstract

The concept of self-reflection is investigated in a wide range of fields, from Psychology to HCI. Different fields use different methods to trigger reflection, such as visualizing accumulated personal quantitative data, personal photos, journaling, or asking reflective questions about experiences. This study combines photo-based journaling, reflective questions and data visualization for triggering momentary and retrospective self-reflection. We prototyped a photo-based journaling app and conducted a 5-week field study (N=13) to observe in-the-wild experiences. Following, we conducted an evaluation workshop (N=9) to explore strategies for motivating reflective question answering and retrospective self-reflection. Our approach encourages momentary and retrospective self-reflection, but the question-answering process could be burdensome and retrospective self-reflection should be incentivized. For that, we compiled design strategies for both kinds of self-reflection. We contribute to the HCI literature with strategies for unifying momentary and retrospective self-reflection in photo-based journaling.