The prevalence of functional and affordable wearable biosensors has led to an increase in stress management applications for learning about and improving one’s mental health. Previous research suggests that different types of graphical interfaces may evoke diverse user experiences with biofeedback interpretations and related interventions. In this research, we systematically investigate the effect of various biofeedback visual designs on supporting user engagement during a guided stress management practice. Specifically, we hypothesize that certain visual designs will affect user engagement and, thus, the training attention and physiological measures, due to their specific design features. Following a series of design studies, we assess five different styles of visual design and, for each style, we identify a suitable representative (i.e., raw numbers for the numerical style, bar charts for the analytical style, waves for the illustrative style, butterfly drawings for the artistic style, and table lamps for the ambient style). In a controlled within-subject experiment with 35 participants, we assess these five designs through a biofeedback-assisted stress management practice. We find that, overall, visual representation of data increases engagement and, thus, better facilitates stress management training when compared to a numerical display. The analysis through the results suggests that a certain level of abstraction in the interpretation of data encoding helps users move away from being judgmental; whereas animations and transitions augment the experience of being in the present moment.

功能性和负担得起的可穿戴生物传感器的普遍使用导致了用于了解和改善心理健康的压力管理应用程序的增加。先前的研究表明，不同类型的图形界面可能会引起生物反馈解释和相关干预措施的不同用户体验。在这项研究中，我们系统地研究了各种生物反馈视觉设计在指导性压力管理实践中对支持用户参与的影响。具体而言，我们假设某些视觉设计由于其特定的设计特征而会影响用户的参与度，从而影响培训的注意力和生理措施。经过一系列的设计研究，我们评估了五种不同的视觉设计风格，并针对每种风格确定了合适的代表（例如，数字样式的原始数字，分析样式的条形图，说明样式的波浪图，艺术风格的蝴蝶图和台灯用于环境样式）。在一项由35名参与者组成的受控受试者内部实验中，我们通过生物反馈辅助的压力管理实践评估了这5种设计。我们发现，总体而言，数据的可视表示形式增加了参与度，因此与数字显示相比，更好地促进了压力管理培训。通过结果分析表明，数据编码解释中的某种抽象水平可以帮助用户摆脱判断力。而动画和转场则增强了当下的体验。