Pride and prejudice: Learning how chronically ill people think about food

In this paper, we describe a formative study to learn how one chronically ill population thinks about food, mentally organizes food, and interprets consumption-level icons. We found that many participants let their pride influence their choices, resulting in preferred interfaces that they could not accurately interpret. The results indicate that participants organized food in similar ways, had difficulty reading from their preferred consumption-level icons, and wanted to combine multiple interface designs when searching for food

Older Adults with AMD as Co-Designers of an Assistive Mobile Application

In the UK, 20% of people aged 75 years and over are living with sight loss and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of sight loss in the UK, impacting nearly 10% of those over 80; regrettably, these figures are expected to increase in coming decades as the population ages (RNIB, 2012). This paper reports on the authors’ design activities conducted for the purpose of informing the development of an assistive self-monitoring, ability-reactive technology (SMART) for older adults with AMD. The authors reflect on their experience of adopting and adapting the PICTIVE (Plastic Interface for Collaborative Technology Initiatives through Video Exploration) participatory design approach (Muller, 1992) to support effective design with and for their special needs user group, reflect on participants’ views of being part of the process, and discuss the design themes identified via their PD activities

ALEX®: a mobile Adult Literacy Experiential Learning application

An alarmingly high number of adults in the world's most developed countries are linguistically functionally illiterate. The research presented in this paper describes ALEX©, an ongoing attempt to successfully develop an innovative assistive, mobile, experiential language-learning application to support the daily literacy education and needs of such adults, anywhere, anytime. We introduce a set of guidelines we have collated to inform the design of mobile assistive technologies, introduce our application and describe the design activities to date that have led to the development of our current application. We present this overview in the hope that it is useful to others working in the fledgling domains of mobile assistive technology design and/or mobile experiential language-learning technologies

Autonomous indoor wayfinding for individuals with cognitive impairments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A challenge to individuals with cognitive impairments in wayfinding is how to remain oriented, recall routines, and travel in unfamiliar areas in a way relying on limited cognitive capacity. While people without disabilities often use maps or written directions as navigation tools or for remaining oriented, this cognitively-impaired population is very sensitive to issues of abstraction (e.g. icons on maps or signage) and presents the designer with a challenge to tailor navigation information specific to each user and context.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper describes an approach to providing distributed cognition support of travel guidance for persons with cognitive disabilities. A solution is proposed based on passive near-field RFID tags and scanning PDAs. A prototype is built and tested in field experiments with real subjects. The unique strength of the system is the ability to provide unique-to-the-user prompts that are triggered by context. The key to the approach is to spread the context awareness across the system, with the context being flagged by the RFID tags and the appropriate response being evoked by displaying the appropriate path guidance images indexed by the intersection of specific end-user and context ID embedded in RFID tags.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that passive RFIDs generally served as good context for triggering navigation prompts, although individual differences in effectiveness varied. The results of controlled experiments provided more evidence with regard to applicabilities of the proposed autonomous indoor wayfinding method.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings suggest that the ability to adapt indoor wayfinding devices for appropriate timing of directions and standing orientation will be particularly important.</p

EquiP: A Method to Co-Design for Cooperation

In Participatory Design (PD), the design of a cooperative digital solution should involve all stakeholders in the co-design. When one stakeholder’s position is weaker due to socio-cultural structures or differences in knowledge or abilities, PD methods should help designers balance the power in the design process at both the macro and micro levels. We present a PD method that addresses the power relations arising during the design process and draws on theories about participation and power in the design and organisation of change processes. We contribute to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) by using the PD method to design computer support for cooperation on cognitive rehabilitation between people with Mild Acquired Brain Injuries (MACI) and their healthcare professionals, where strengthening the cooperation is considered an element of patient empowerment. This method is presented as a contribution to the intersection between PD and CSCW. The discussion of power in PD contributes to the discussion of cooperation in CSCW. We found that EquiP supported the creation of choices, and hence the ‘power to’ influence the design. This method can contribute to a power ‘equilibrium’ and a positive-sum power relation in PD sessions involving all stakeholders.publishedVersio

Engaging older adults with age-related macular degeneration in the design and evaluation of mobile assistive technologies

Ongoing advances in technology are undoubtedly increasing the scope for enhancing and supporting older adults’ daily living. The digital divide between older and younger adults, however, raises concerns about the suitability of technological solutions for older adults, especially for those with impairments. Taking older adults with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) – a progressive and degenerative disease of the eye – as a case study, the research reported in this dissertation considers how best to engage older adults in the design and evaluation of mobile assistive technologies to achieve sympathetic design of such technologies. Recognising the importance of good nutrition and the challenges involved in designing for people with AMD, this research followed a participatory and user-centred design (UCD) approach to develop a proof–of–concept diet diary application for people with AMD. Findings from initial knowledge elicitation activities contribute to the growing debate surrounding the issues on how older adults’ participation is initiated, planned and managed. Reflections on the application of the participatory design method highlighted a number of key strategies that can be applied to maintain empathic participatory design rapport with older adults and, subsequently, lead to the formulation of participatory design guidelines for effectively engaging older adults in design activities. Taking a novel approach, the final evaluation study contributed to the gap in the knowledge on how to bring closure to the participatory process in as positive a way as possible, cognisant of the potential negative effect that withdrawal of the participatory process may have on individuals. Based on the results of this study, we ascertain that (a) sympathetic design of technology with older adults will maximise technology acceptance and shows strong indicators for affecting behaviour change; and (b) being involved in the design and development of such technologies has the capacity to significantly improve the quality of life of older adults (with AMD)

Engaging older adults and people with dementia in the design of digital technologies

PhD ThesisImprovements in healthcare and nutrition have led to increased life expectancies for people around the world, and a growing need to support the larger numbers of older people living with chronic and age-related health conditions. Although the use of digital technologies is increasingly proposed for health and social care solutions, in practice the designers of these technologies are ill equipped to actively engage older people and in particular people with syndromes such as dementia. An examination of previous work on design for older people, and people with dementia, suggests that poor design arises from a gulf in knowledge and experience between the designers and their subjects. To address this divide the KITE participatory design method for engaging people with dementia in design is proposed. KITE facilitates engagement by structuring and scaffolding an empathic relationship between designers and their participants. The approach is elaborated and evaluated through an exercise to design a digital technology to help people with dementia have safe walking experiences. The analysis of this process leads to the formulation of the OASIS design method which is intended to apply to older people more generally. OASIS is evaluated and refined through a number of design studies for technologies to support healthy eating, day-to-day travelling needs and living safely within the community. Reflection on the application of the OASIS method highlights a number of key strategies that can be used to establish and maintain respectful, empathic, and productive participatory design relationships with older adults and people with dementia