Designing for the Changing Body: A Feminist Exploration of Self-Tracking Technologies

Our bodies are in a constant state of flux. Self-tracking technologies are increasingly used to understand, track and predict these fluxes and physiological processes. This paper outlines ongoing research that investigates the mediating qualities of self-tracking technologies. As physiological fluxes and processes are more commonly experienced by women, and have been historically used as a tool for subjugation, a feminist perspective and methodology is applied within this research. Methods including research-through-design and speculative and critical design are used to test the hypothesis that through speculating on the design of self-tracking technologies, valuable knowledge can be contributed to the fields of HCI and interaction design in relation to subjects such as the societal taboos and prejudices surrounding the notion of the changing body, privacy of biodata and how identity and sense of self is shaped through the act of self-tracking.