Reflection in Theory and Reflection in Practice: An Exploration of the Gaps in Reflection Support among Personal Informatics Apps

Personal informatics (PI) systems have been developed to support reflection. While reflection is considered an indispensable activity in PI use, how and when reflection occurs is still under-studied. In this paper, we present an analysis of the interactive features of 123 commercial PI apps, revealing that reflective practices are unevenly supported. The lack of features that encourage user-driven reflection, scaffolding for setting goals and configuring data collection and presentation, and consideration of wider implications stand to limit meaning-making and frustrate nuanced insight generation based on lived experiences. Based on our findings, we discuss how reflection is currently misrepresented in personal informatics tools, identify and characterize the gaps between theoretical research on reflection and interface features in current apps, and offer suggestions about how reflection could be better supported.