2 research outputs found
A Distributed Model for Stressors Monitoring Based on Environmental Smart Sensors
Nowadays, in many countries, stress is becoming a problem that increasingly affects the health of people. Suffering stress continuously can lead to serious behavioral disorders such as anxiety or depression. Every person, in his daily routine, can face many factors which can contribute to increase his stress level. This paper describes a flexible and distributed model to monitor environmental variables associated with stress, which provides adaptability to any environment in an agile way. This model was designed to transform stress environmental variables in value added information (key stress indicator) and to provide it to external systems, in both proactive and reactive mode. Thus, this value-added information will assist organizations and users in a personalized way helping in the detection and prevention of acute stress cases. Our proposed model is supported by an architecture that achieves the features above mentioned, in addition to interoperability, robustness, scalability, autonomy, efficient, low cost and consumption, and information availability in real time. Finally, a prototype of the system was implemented, allowing the validation of the proposal in different environments at the University of Alicante.This work has been granted by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government (Ref. TIN2014-53067-C3-1-R) and cofinanced by FEDER
Smart workplaces: a system proposal for stress management
Over the past last decades of contemporary society, workplaces
have become the primary source of many health issues, leading
to mental problems such as stress, depression, and anxiety.
Among the others, environmental aspects have shown to be the
causes of stress, illness, and lack of productivity. With the arrival
of new technologies, especially in the smart workplaces field,
most studies have focused on investigating the building energy
efficiency models and human thermal comfort. However, little has
been applied to occupants’ stress recognition and well-being
overall. Due to this fact, this present study aims to propose a
stress management solution for an interactive design system that
allows the adapting of comfortable environmental conditions
according to the user preferences by measuring in real-time the
environmental and biological characteristics, thereby helping to
prevent stress, as well as to enable users to cope stress when
being stressed. The secondary objective will focus on evaluating
one part of the system: the mobile application. The proposed
system uses several usability methods to identify users’ needs,
behavior, and expectations from the user-centered design
approach. Applied methods, such as User Research, Card
Sorting, and Expert Review, allowed us to evaluate the design
system according to Heuristics Analysis, resulting in improved
usability of interfaces and experience. The study presents the
research results, the design interface, and usability tests.
According to the User Research results, temperature and noise
are the most common environmental stressors among the users
causing stress and uncomfortable conditions to work in, and the
preference for physical activities over the digital solutions for
coping with stress. Additionally, the System Usability Scale (SUS)
results identified that the system’s usability was measured as
“excellent” and “acceptable” with a final score of 88 points out of
the 100. It is expected that these conclusions can contribute to
future investigations in the smart workplaces study field and their
interaction with the people placed there.Nas últimas décadas da sociedade contemporânea, o local de
trabalho tem se tornado principal fonte de muitos problemas de
saúde mental, como o stress, depressão e ansiedade. Os aspetos
ambientais têm se revelado como as causas de stress, doenças,
falta de produtividade, entre outros. Atualmente, com a chegada de
novas tecnologias, principalmente na área de locais de trabalho
inteligentes, a maioria dos estudos tem se concentrado na
investigação de modelos de eficiência energética de edifícios e
conforto térmico humano. No entanto, pouco foi aplicado ao
reconhecimento do stress dos ocupantes e ao bem-estar geral das
pessoas. Diante disso, o objetivo principal é propor um sistema de
design de gestão do stress para um sistema de design interativo que
permita adaptar as condições ambientais de acordo com as
preferências de utilizador, medindo em tempo real as características
ambientais e biológicas, auxiliando assim na prevenção de stress,
bem como ajuda os utilizadores a lidar com o stress quando estão
sob o mesmo. O segundo objetivo é desenhar e avaliar uma parte
do projeto — o protótipo da aplicação móvel através da realização
de testes de usabilidade. O sistema proposto resulta da abordagem
de design centrado no utilizador, utilizando diversos métodos de
usabilidade para identificar as necessidades, comportamentos e as
expectativas dos utilizadores. Métodos aplicados, como Pesquisa de
Usuário, Card Sorting e Revisão de Especialistas, permitiram avaliar
o sistema de design de acordo com a análise heurística, resultando
numa melhoria na usabilidade das interfaces e experiência. O
estudo apresenta os resultados da pesquisa, a interface do design e
os testes de usabilidade. De acordo com os resultados de User
Research, a temperatura e o ruído são os stressores ambientais
mais comuns entre os utilizadores, causando stresse e condições
menos favoráveis para trabalhar, igualmente existe uma preferência
por atividades físicas sobre as soluções digitais na gestão do
stresse. Adicionalmente, os resultados de System Usability Scale
(SUS) identificaram a usabilidade do sistema de design como
“excelente” e “aceitável” com pontuação final de 88 pontos em 100.
É esperado que essas conclusões possam contribuir para futuras
investigações no campo de estudo dos smart workplaces e sua
interação com os utilizadores