Experience Centred Design for a Robotic Eating Aid

We discuss how an experience centred approach to robotic design might lead to new design spaces and products that are more engaging and better meet users' needs and lifestyles. To support the statement, we present preliminary data from a long-term user study on an eating aid robot

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Understanding Consumer Behaviour to Reduce Environmental Impacts through Sustainable Product Design

The use phase of the lifecycle of electrical products has a significant environmental impact, mainly determined by the consumer’s behaviour. Many consumers do not make the link between their daily consumption behaviour in the household and environmental problems such as climate change. In the 21st century, the residential sector, together with transport and industry, is one of the largest man-made contributors in the UK to climate change. It is argued that technological innovations, current eco-efficient products and consumer education have been ineffective in creating the long term radical behavioural change needed to reduce the impact of product use. Products, as the interface between consumers and consumption activities, have the potential to influence the way in which consumption occurs. In the sustainable design field however, designer responsibility traditionally considers raw material selection and product disposal. There is limited work that addresses the environmental impacts relating directly to use behaviour of the product. This paper illustrates that user behaviour studies can be the preliminary step for designers to improve energy efficiency of products. A single product type, household cold appliance, was chosen as a case to explore the capacity of designer-conducted user study to identify unsustainable aspects of product use. Adopting a user-centred approach, two pilot studies were used to gain an insight into domestic fridge and freezer use in the UK. Qualitative ethnographical research methods were employed to investigate the daily practices and “real” needs of user as well as the connection between the knowledge, attitudes, intention and actual action. The design suggestions drawn from the user behaviour analysis provide examples of how energy impact level of the interaction with the product can be reduced through design. Keywords: User-Centred Research; Sustainable Product Design; Changing Consumer Behaviour; Design Research; Household Energy Consumption; Household Cold Appliance.</p

Fine-tuning a context-aware system application by using user-centred design methods

Context-Aware Systems in the home environment can provide an effective solution for supporting wellbeing and autonomy for the elderly. The definition and implementation of the system architecture for a particular assisted living healthcare application entail both technological and usability challenges. If issues regarding users’ concerns and desires are taken into account in the early stages of the system development users can benefit substantially more from this technology. In this paper, we describe our initial experiences with different user-centred design methods, as they are applied in the process of fine-tuning a context-aware system architecture to improve quality of life for elderly THR patients (Total Hip Replacement). The insights resulting from this approach result in a clearer functional specification towards a better fit with the user needs regarding information need of the patient as well as the physiotherapist. Important system requirements as timing and content of the feedback are much more fruitful in an earlier phase of the development process. User-centred design methods help to better understand the needed functional features of a context-aware system, thereby saving time and helping developers to improve adoption of the system by the users

Requirements for home-based upper extremity rehabilitation using wearable motion sensors for stroke patients:a user-centred approach

Purpose: Telerehabilitation systems have the potential to enable therapists to monitor and assist stroke patients in achieving high-intensity upper extremity exercise in the home environment. We adopted an iterative user-centred approach, including multiple data sources and meetings with end-users and stakeholders to define the user requirements for home-based upper extremity rehabilitation using wearable motion sensors for subacute stroke patients. Methods: We performed a requirement analysis consisting of the following steps: 1) context &amp; groundwork; 2) eliciting requirements; 3) modelling &amp; analysis; 4) agreeing requirements. During these steps, a pragmatic literature search, interviews and focus groups with stroke patients, physiotherapists and occupational therapists were performed. The results were systematically analysed and prioritised into “must-haves”, “should-haves”, and “could-haves”. Results: We formulated 33 functional requirements: eighteen must-have requirements related to blended care (2), exercise principles (7), exercise delivery (3), exercise evaluation (4), and usability (2); ten should-haves; and five could-haves. Six movement components, including twelve exercises and five combination exercises, are required. For each exercise, appropriate exercise measures were defined. Conclusion: This study provides an overview of functional requirements, required exercises, and required exercise measures for home-based upper extremity rehabilitation using wearable motion sensors for stroke patients, which can be used to develop home-based upper extremity rehabilitation interventions. Moreover, the comprehensive and systematic requirement analysis used in this study can be applied by other researchers and developers when extracting requirements for designing a system or intervention in a medical context.</p

Pervasive healthcare in lived experience : thinking beyond the home : position paper for workshop on pervasive healthcare in the home.

The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, like many other public heath services worldwide, is facing a number of key challenges. Among them are an ageing population and a rising incidence of chronic health conditions. This situation requires a radical re-examination of how people manage their health and their healthcare in ways that challenge the relationship between people and healthcare services. Combining this observation with the opportunities afforded by pervasive information and communication technologies, we argue that design research should reach beyond simply locating devices and services to offer healthcare ‘in the home’ and should examine this broader agenda. Rather than focussing design discourse on the specifics of one location, we should adopt a holistic view, beginning from people’s lived experience. In this position paper we describe the User-Centred Healthcare Design (UCHD) project, a 5-year collaboration between universities and NHS Trusts in South Yorkshire, UK. We suggest that new models of healthcare that re-define the institutional and social context of care are required if we are to meet the challenge of chronic illness. We describe our progress to date on the UCHD project, our commitment to placing patient experience at the centre of design, and our initial experiences of using an experience-based co-design method to improve outpatient services in a Sheffield hospital

Remembering today tomorrow: exploring the human-centred design of digital mementos

This paper describes two-part research exploring the context for and human-centred design of ‘digital mementos’, as an example of technology for reflection on personal experience(in this case, autobiographical memories). Field studies into families’ use of physical and digital objects for remembering provided a rich understanding of associated user needs and human values, and suggested properties for ‘digital mementos’ such as being ‘not like work’, discoverable and fun. In a subsequent design study, artefacts were devised to express these features and develop the understanding of needs and values further via discussion with groups of potential ‘users’. ‘Critical artefacts’(the products of Critical Design)were used to enable participants to envisage broader possibilities for social practices and applications of technology in the context of personal remembering, and thus to engage in the design of novel devices and systems relevant to their lives. Reflection was a common theme in the work, being what the digital mementos were designed to afford and the mechanism by which the design activity progressed. Ideas for digital mementos formed the output of this research and expressed the designer’s and researcher’s understanding of participants’ practices and needs, and the human values that underlie them and, in doing so, suggest devices and systems that go beyond usability to support a broader conception of human activity

Modelling the User: How design for sustainable behaviour can reveal different stakeholder perspectives on human nature

Copyright @ 2010 TU DelftInfluencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers’ work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used—we have identified over 100 design patterns in our Design with Intent toolkit—each intended to work via a particular set of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about ‘what people are like’: how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. In this paper, we discuss three simple models of user behaviour—the Pinball, the Shortcut and the Thoughtful—which emerge from user experience designers’ statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. We characterise these models using systems terminology and examine the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour via a series of examples

Behaviour change at work: Empowering energy efficiency in the workplace through user-centred design

Copyright @ 2011 University of California eScholarship RepositoryCO2 emissions from non-domestic buildings - primarily workplaces - make up 18 percent of the UK's carbon footprint. A combination of technology advances and behavioural changes have the potential to make significant impact, but interventions have often been planned in ways which do not take into account the needs, levels of understanding and everyday behavioural contexts of building users - and hence do not achieve the hoped-for success.This paper provides a brief introduction to the Empower project, a current industrial-academic collaboration in the UK which is applying methods from user-centred design practice to understand diverse users' needs, priorities, mental models of energy and decision-making heuristics - as well as the affordances available to them - in a number of office buildings. We are developing and trialling a set of low-cost, simple software interventions tailored to multiple user groups with different degrees of agency over their energy use, which seek to influence more energy efficient behaviour at work in areas such as HVAC, lighting and equipment use. The project comprises an ethnographic research phase, a participatory design programme involving building users in the design of interventions, and iterative trials in a large office building in central London