Designing for positive health affect: Decoupling negative emotion and health monitoring technologies

Through various health-focused technology projects, we discovered that the emotional response to technology was related to uptake and sustained use of health monitoring technologies. In this paper we present a case study of how we synthesized constructs of social cognitive theory, technology as experience, and diabetes management guidelines as a framework for making design recommendations for blood glucose monitoring technology that address the emotional response of users. We suggest applying this theoretical lens for design may help attend to emotional responses of users in an effort to decouple strong negative emotions that are paired to health monitoring technologies that provide a single value health result.