Identifying factors for personalized strategies to motivate seniors to adopt a more active lifestyle

Purpose Sedentary lifestyles threaten the independence and wellbeing of the rapidly growing senior population1. This lack of physical activity contributes to symptoms of frailty2. Maintaining or increasing physical activity has many benefits3 and can increase senior independence3. The value of personal profiling (context of work, personal traits ...e tc.) according to personal drivers toward behavioral intention i s accepted. User profiling relates to the goal that the user aims to reach, while psychological factors relate to motivation towards behavior changes6. It is therefore necessary to investigate which profiling factors are important to create personalized motivational strategies for promotion of physical activities. Method In this observational study, community dwelling senior members of a local Dutch senior community center were asked to wear the Xiaomi Band step counters and record their daily activities in diary-like cultural probe with both open and closed questions. Personal trait information, including age, gender, their perceived age, perceived health, participant stage of change7 and their Regulatory Focus8, was collected at the beginning and end of the 3-month test period. Results & Discussion Of the 52 seniors initially recruited, 44 submitted diaries and 15 yielded complete step data. To explore the relationship between participant's personal traits and activities, a word search on the qualitative data from the diaries was done to find how often participants mentioned high, moderate and low intensity physical activity. The number of references which male and female participants made about these levels of physical activity was compared using a non-parametric test correlation analysis using Spearman's rho correlation efficient. With 95% confidence, this analysis implied that female participants undertook a higher diversity of physical activity in terms of intensity compared to male participants (Spearman's rho=0.878). This result suggests that gender is one important profiling factor concerning the promotion of physical activity. A similar analysis was conducted to examine the level of physical activity reported compared to participant's level of perceived health. This analysis indicated, with 99% confidence (Spearman's rho=0.698), that participants with higher perceived health undertook activities with more diverse levels of physical intensity. Further research is needed to see if health or self-efficacy could cause this correlation. In a linear regression analysis, no significant difference was found between the number of steps participants with a different regulatory focus8 (promotion or prevention) made. The number of steps participants completed was correlated with the months that the steps were taken in (February, March, or April). This could be possibly due to the improved weather and could suggest that personalized strategies addressing participant's environment or context can also increase motivation to physical activity

A user-centered design: Methodological tools to design and develop computer games for motor-impaired users

User-Centered Design (UCD) is a term to describe design processes which focus on designing for and involving users in the design of applications The implementation of UCD in the game design process can enhance the user experience especially for special needs users such as motor-impaired users (MIU).This is very important, since the user experience will eventually be a significant element in the computer game’s success.The main objective of this study is to investigate UCD as a methodological tool to design and develop enjoyable games for MIU.The findings of the study showed users’ feedback on game design for MIU while applying UCD methods to game improvement and evaluation.Hopefully, the results of the study will emphasize the need for developing enjoyable game designs for MIU

Some Reflections on Designing Effective Social Telerehabilitation Services for Older Adults

The share of the population aged 65 years and over is increasing in every EU Member State, candidate country, and EFTA Member State. WHO/Europe has established a Subnetwork on Healthy Ageing within the European Healthy Cities Network and provides guidance to Member States in developing profiles of healthy ageing, since, given the increasing number of older adults, maintaining their health status is a crucial issue.  This article, which is part of the Latvian national scientific program VPP INOSOCTEREHI, focuses on the issues related to the design, implementation, and assessment of user interfaces that can maximize usability in social telerehabilitation systems for older adult users. This is a very real challenge, since older adults don’t form a homogeneous class. Investigating older adults’ skills and their attitudes towards the perceived usefulness of computer applications could be helpful in identifying some sub-sets of older adult users and their typical behaviours

Practice-based personas: integrated user and practice models

Practices are routinised behaviours with social and material components and complex relationships over space and time. Practice-based design goes beyond interaction design to consider how these components and their relationships impact on the formation and enactment of a practice, where technology is just one part of the practice. Though situated user-centred design methods such as participatory design are employed for the design of practice, demand exists for additional methods and tools in this area. This paper introduces practice-based personas as an extension of the persona approach popular in interaction design, and demonstrates how a set of practice-based personas was developed for a given domain – academic practice. The three practice-based personas developed here are linked to a catalogue of forty practices, offering designers both a user perspective and a practice perspective when designing for the domain

A taxonomy of preferences for physically assistive robots

© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Assistive devices and technologies are getting common and some commercial products are starting to be available. However, the deployment of robots able to physically interact with a person in an assistive manner is still a challenging problem. Apart from the design and control, the robot must be able to adapt to the user it is attending in order to become a useful tool for caregivers. This robot behavior adaptation comes through the definition of user preferences for the task such that the robot can act in the user’s desired way. This article presents a taxonomy of user preferences for assistive scenarios, including physical interactions, that may be used to improve robot decision-making algorithms. The taxonomy categorizes the preferences based on their semantics and possible uses. We propose the categorization in two levels of application (global and specific) as well as two types (primary and modifier). Examples of real preference classifications are presented in three assistive tasks: feeding, shoe fitting and coat dressing.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Perancangan Antarmuka Online Course Pada Perangkat Mobile Menggunakan Teori USAbility

E-learning model can be developed into various forms according to the context of development. All of e-learning model aims to support learning process. The main objective of this study was to design online course interface that runs in mobile device using the theory of USAbility ISO 9241-11 in UAJY (Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta). Data was collected from 55 undergraduate students of UAJY. It is used as initial state in design process. Furthermore, online course interface design created with use case diagram that adapted to activities of HTA. Nevertheless, in the design process components of interface created by the user persona and mobile device pattern, as well as guided by MGQM, which is also adapted to the limitations of this study and the conditions in UAJY. In addition, using log data collection to handle part of MGQM, which related with time, steps, resources

The Challenges of and Solutions for Combining Cocreation and Agile in the Development of Health Information Technologies

Background: Involving users has become a prominent principle in the development of Health Information Technologies (HIT) and has led to an uprise in agile and cocreation methods. Previous literature shows how the two can be combined in one method, but also suggest that using such a method may come with challenges, for which a solution is unclear.Purpose: To identify the challenges of using a method that combines agile and cocreation, provide solutions for these challenges, and evaluate its usage. Methods and Materials: The setting for this research was the Agile Cocreation of Robots for Aging (ACCRA) project. The research consisted of three phases: 1) evaluating the Agile Cocreation method to identify challenges in its usage, by analysing documents from the project (e-mails, meeting notes), 2) solving the challenges to improve the method, by designing solutions in a co-creation session; and 3) evaluating the usage of the improved version via a survey among engineers and user researchers involved in the project.Results: We identified three main challenges and developed three solutions, which were used in the next phase of the project. First, to engage all stakeholders in cocreation, we implemented more fun and playful materials. Second, to bridge the differences between engineers and user researchers we invested in face-to-face meetings. Third, to manage knowledge in the project we intensified our meeting schedule too weekly meetings. In the quantitative evaluation of the improved cocreation method, the engineers and user researchers were positive about the agile cocreation method and about our improvements.Conclusion: When developing HIT, a method that combines agile and cocreation is useful because it helps to identify user needs and to translate these needs into technology. To identify the needs of these users and other stakeholders it is important to involve them as active partners in cocreation using fun and playful materials. Engineers and user researchers should bridge their differences and meet face-to-face as much as possible

Development of a Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Program (HELP) Online Website for Filipinos: A Case Report

Background and Purpose: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a major public health problem in the Philippines and around the world. Preventive measures to reduce its continuous rise require improvement in the health system. Utilization of information and communication technology-(ICT)-based tools will allow dissemination of evidenced-based information in the population. This case report contains the description of the development process of a Web-based nutrition Website. Case Description: ICT-based tools were explored as means of communicating nutrition information to the public because of the increasing access and usage of the Internet among Filipinos. An iterative process with five major phases were followed in the development. Outcome: The Website HELP Online can be accessed through (http://i.fnri.dost.gov.ph/helponline). There is integration of two modules: one for the general public and the other for registered nutritionist dietitians (RND) of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI). The first module contained the nutrition counseling platform that connects and records all interactions of online and walk-in clients with their RNDs. The second module contained nutrition calculators, a health tracker, and nutrition education materials. Discussion: The developed HELP Online Website was used for online users to easily access nutrition information and services offered by Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-FNRI. The user-centered design focus in combination with a responsive Web platform resulted in improved user satisfaction. In terms of content, use of the current and accepted scientific information translated to simpler and easier messages were found to be more effective among the target group. Although many issues exist with the continuous use of ICT-based tools, the main purpose is to improve the delivery of evidence-based information to the public