SleepCompete: A Smart Bedside Device to Promote Healthy Sleeping Habits in Children

We outline SleepCompete: a bedside device that encourages and promotes healthy sleeping behaviour in families, with a particular focus on children, in a fun and useful way. SleepCompete encourages children and their parents to monitor sleeping habits by introducing a ‘sleep score’. By sharing this score with others we propose that SleepCompete persuades its users to improve sleeping habits. We outline the concept of our device and the preliminary study we conducted

Framework to Evaluate Emerging Systems Designed to Health Field

In recent years, several information and communication technology systems have emerged as tools to improve sleep quality. Research reveals that poor sleep quality may produce irritability and deficits in performance, concentration, and learning ability in the short term, and is associated with chronic disease in the long term. ICT proposals range from the old Polysomnography (PSG) to innovative systems, such as wearable devices, smartphone applications, and suites of sensors embedded in the users’ environment. Since these technological developments concern a health issue, they have raised important questions regarding their reliability and the level of rigor of the evaluations to which they are submitted. We found that some of the emerging systems that we studied, do not meet the requirements that health science demands to be accepted as clinical tools. The rationale behind this apparent weakness is explained with arguments from the field of evaluations for health interventions and evaluation of technological developments. We propose a framework to evaluate this kind of systems through appropriate scientific methods that provide valuable information to the research. These methods must be performed while designs mature and the feasibility of rigorous evaluations became appropriate

Obtrusiveness of smartphone applications for sleep health

Unobtrusiveness is one of the main issues concerning health-related systems. Many developers affirm that their systems do not burden users; however, this is not always achieved. This article evaluates the obtrusiveness of various systems developed to improve sleep quality. The systems analyzed are related to sleep hygiene, since it has become an interesting topic for researchers, physicians and people in general, mainly because it has become part of the methods used to estimate a persons’ health status A set of design elements are presented as keys to achieving unobtrusiveness. We propose a scale to measure the level of unobtrusiveness and use it to evaluate several systems, with a focus on smartphone applications.

Promoting Pediatric Healthcare through Persuasive Information Systems: A Qualitative Study

This paper presents qualitative findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial that focused on applying a Persuasive Information System to promote Pediatric Healthcare following the guidelines of Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses. The study was primarily designed to introduce Persuasive Information Systems for promoting pediatric healthcare in a relatively under-developed country. The study investigates potential impact of simple text-based reminders on improving parents’ knowledge and skills when dealing with a sick child at home before deciding to seek healthcare professionals. Reminders were selected for this study, as they are most commonly employed persuasive software features in the area of Persuasive Information Systems. For data collection, we conducted Focus Group Discussions with participants of both intervention groups. The qualitative findings indicate that the participants largely favored reminders although there were some skeptical remarks. The findings from presented study are expected to help system designers work in collaboration with parents and healthcare professionals to improve the content and delivery of reminders. The qualitative findings helped us identify five emerging themes that are expected to open research opportunities for improving child healthcare researchers

INFLUENCE OF PERSUASIVE REMINDERS AND VIRTUAL REHEARSAL ON INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR SLEEP DEPRIVATION

Appropriate amount and good quality of sleep are essential for mental and general well-being. Sleep deprivation and other chronic sleep disorders could lead to negative consequences for health, poor quality of life and reduced competence. An individual’s quality of life could be unsettled because of several reasons, sleep deprivation is one of them. Information systems (IS) and human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers have paid considerable attention to promote healthy behaviors however sleep deprivation as a problem domain has received relatively little attention. In this paper, we present qualitative findings from a field study that examined potential influence of persuasive reminders and virtual rehearsal on the effectiveness of a Behavior Change Support System (BCSS). Tyyne is a BCSS developed for people suffering from sleep deprivation. The content of virtual rehearsal modules were drawn from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Participants were recruited through newspaper advertisements. After screening at the university clinic, eligible participants (n = 86) were randomized into an Intervention group and a Control (wait-list) group. For data collection, we employed pre and post study structured questionnaires. Upon completion of the study, 41 participants volunteered to complete post study questionnaires. The findings reveal that a moderate number of participants (60.5%) improved their sleeping habits, a significantly high number of participants (79.1%) approved the BCSS, a staggering high number (93.0%) of the participants agreed that learning new skills through web-based BCSS is a good idea, and a substantial number of participants (72.1%) believed that persuasive reminders help people in task completion and compliance. Even though only about one third of participants (37.2%) reported that after using the BCSS they could better manage their sleep disorders, we suggest that the findings are encouraging. Given that treating sleep deprivation requires much longer periods of time than the intervention’s duration (in our case it was 6 weeks), improvement with one third of the participants is nevertheless a promising result. On the whole, persuasive reminders and virtual rehearsal as software features have a significant potential to enhance overall effectiveness of information systems for chronic sleep disorders

An assistive technology design framework for ADHD

In this paper, we present a design framework for ADHD assistive technologies that aims to give researchers grounding in the background research on the condition, to provide a lingua franca, and to highlight potential research directions for HCI researchers within assistive technology. The design framework couples ADHD patient challenge areas to technological opportunities and it provides a set of practical design strategies for developing successful assistive technologies for people with ADHD. The framework is based on empirical studies, ADHD research, and related work on assistive technologies. We map existing assistive technologies and potential new research efforts to the framework concepts. This way we show how it is used to support and advance the research and development of novel assistive technologies for the ADHD domain

SLEEP TRACKING AS A STRESSOR: EXPERIENCES FROM SMART RING USERS

Lack of sleep hygiene is a widespread problem that drives the demand for sleep-tracking technologies. Prior research discussed the dark side of self-tracking technologies, but research specifically on sleep-tracking technologies is scarce. This study explores what potential stressors users attribute to sleep tracking executed through a smart ring. We conducted 38 semi-structured interviews and used thematic analysis to identify eight potential stressors in the context of sleep tracking. These stressors include complexity, invasion, inaccuracy, unreliability, data-feelings discrepancy, the pursuit of perfect data, vague guidance and interpretations, and overload with multiple self-tracking technologies. We further theorize these potential stressors using the person-technology fit model. The paper contributes to the nascent IS research on technostress in the context of sleep tracking

Changing Family Practices with Assistive Technology: MOBERO Improves Morning and Bedtime Routines for Children with ADHD

Families of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often report morning and bedtime routines to be stressful and frustrating. Through a design process involving domain professionals and families we designed MOBERO, a smartphone-based system that assists families in establishing healthy morning and bedtime routines with the aim to assist the child in becoming independent and lowering the parents’ frustration levels. In a two-week intervention with 13 children with ADHD and their families, MOBERO significantly improved children’s independence and reduced parents’ frustration levels. Additionally, use of MOBERO was associated with a 16.5% reduction in core ADHD symptoms and an 8.3% improvement in the child’s sleep habits, both measured by standardized questionnaires. Our study highlights the potential of assistive technologies to change the everyday practices of families of children with ADHD

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with