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Architecture Overview Work in Progress

This document provides a brief overview over the architecture of PersonalAnalytics. It is still work in progress.

Supported Platforms

At the moment, the following platforms are supported and PersonalAnalytics is extensively tested on them:

  • Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (Windows 7 is no longer supported) Link
  • macOS 10.12 or newer Link In the future, the aim is to also provide similar apps for mobile (Android and iOS) and Linux. Contributions are welcome.

Basic Concepts

  • PersonalAnalytics features a number of Data Trackers, each responsible for tracking, aggregating and storing a certain type of data (e.g. user input).
  • PersonalAnalytics was built with extensibility in mind, meaning that it is very easy to add a new Data Tracker to PersonalAnalytics and dynamically enable/disable them, depending on the usage scenarios (e.g. private usage or research project).

Data Trackers

TODO: complete description and table

  • Data Trackers can be enabled or disabled
  • Data Trackers implement the ITracker interface
  • Visualizations are only provided in the retrospection for enabled trackers
Data Tracker Collected Data Database Table Name OS Support Maturity
WindowsActivityTracker for each application used, the time, duration, process name and window title is stored windows_activity Windows, macOS frequently used
UserInputTracker mouse movement, clicks, scrolls; keyboard strokes (not actual keys, only type (any, navigate, delete) user_input Windows, macOS frequently used
MsOfficeTracker Email info (number of emails in inbox, sent, received, unread), meeting info (time, subject, duration, number of attendees) emails, meetings Windows frequently used
UserEfficiencyTracker participants' self-reports in interval pop-up (e.g. perceived productivity) user_efficiency_survey, user_efficiency_survey_day Windows, macOS frequently used
FitbitTracker synced data, such as heart rate fitbit Windows not actively tested for 1-2 years
PolarTracker synced data, such as heart rate polar Windows not actively tested for 1-2 years

Note: The project is currently not maintained super actively. However, the most important data trackers were ported to run on both Windows and macOS using Typescript and some OS-native code. They are OSS, actively used and maintained here:

  • WindowsActivityTracker that allows to log the timestamp, app name and window title of the currently active window, in addition to an automated catgorization into the Activity (method described in this publication.
  • UserInputTracker that allows to log moue movement, clicks, scrolls and keystrokes with timestamps (not actual keys, only the type (any, navigate, delete) for privacy reasons)

Retrospection

TODO: describe basics and functionality of retrospection

Retrospection Screenshot