Health Metrics and Information Behavior: How Users Estimate and Use Self-Quantifying Activity and Health Information

This study focuses on users of activity tracking technologies and their related information behavior. How useful is the provided information by the trackers? Do users understand all information and explanations? We conducted a web-based survey. All in all, 631 users of a tracking device filled out the survey. From the perspective of information science, this investigation aims to analyze information needs considering different types of the provided information by activity tracking technologies. Are users satisfied by using the information on their steps, heart rates, and sleep duration? How do users assess readability about heart rate zones and sleep stages? Additionally, we investigated if users understand how to reflect on and adapt their health behavior based on the received explanations. According to the results, users mainly agree that the received information (raw data as well as – to a lesser extent – aggregated data in the form of corresponding diagrams) is useful, that the explanations are easy to understand, and that they know how to use this obtained information. This investigation enables an in-depth insight into how users are applying the self-quantifying activity and health information and which information needs are satisfied.