Data, Data Everywhere, and Still Too Hard to Link: Insights from User Interactions with Diabetes Apps

For those with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes, smartphone apps offer the promise of an affordable, convenient, and personalized disease management tool. How- ever, despite significant academic research and commercial development in this area, diabetes apps still show low adoption rates and underwhelming clinical outcomes. Through user-interaction sessions with 16 people with Type 1 diabetes, we provide evidence that commonly used interfaces for diabetes self-management apps, while providing certain benefits, can fail to explicitly address the cognitive and emotional requirements of users. From analysis of these sessions with eight such user interface designs, we report on user requirements, as well as interface benefits, limitations, and then discuss the implications of these findings. Finally, with the goal of improving these apps, we identify 3 questions for designers, and review for each in turn: current shortcomings, relevant approaches, exposed challenges, and potential solutions

A Data Science approach to behavioural change: large scale interventions on physical activity and weight loss

This PhD thesis is a quantitative investigation combining Behaviour Change Science with a Data Science approach in search of more effective large scale, multi-component behavioural interventions for health and well-being. There is limited evidence about how technology-based interventions (including those using wearable physical activity monitors and apps) are efficacious for increasing physical activity and nutrition. The relevance of this research is the systematic approach to overcome previous studies’ limitations in method and measurement: restricted research about multi-component interventions, limited analysis about the impact of social networking, the inclusion of components without sufficient evidence about the components’ effectiveness, the absence of a control group(s), small sample sizes, subjective physical activity reporting, among other limitations. The research was done in conjunction with Tictrac Ltd as the industrial partner, and the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change. Tictrac Ltd builds platforms for the collection and aggregation of personal data generated by the users’ devices and mobile apps. The collaboration with the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change has been instrumental to design, implement, evaluate and analyse behaviour change interventions that impact wellbeing and health. The thesis comprises three areas of research: 1. Computational platforms for large scale behavioural interventions. To support this research, computational platforms were designed, built, deployed and used for randomised behavioural interventions with control groups. The interventions were implemented as experiments related to the behavioural impact on physical activity, weight loss and change in diet. / 2. Behaviour change experiments. The two experiments use the Behaviour Change Wheel framework for behaviour change, intervention design and evaluation. A Data Science approach was used to test hypotheses, determine and quantify the effect of the fundamental intervention components and their interactions. The effective use of tracking devices and apps was determined by comparing the results of ‘structured intervention’ –vs- those of the control group. / Experiment 1: Large scale intervention in a corporate wellness setting. Multi-component behavioural intervention with: control group, self-defined goals, choice architecture and personal dashboards for physical activity and weight loss. The analysis covers network effects of social interactions, the role of being explicit about a type of goal, the impact of making part of team, among other relevant outcomes. / Experiment 2: Identification of critical factors of a technology-based intervention. Multi-component behavioural intervention with simultaneous target behaviours related to weight loss and physical activity, inspired by factorial design for the determination of critical factors and effective components. The analysis comprises: components’ interactions (coach, challenge, team, action plans, forum), non-linear relationships (BMI, change in diet habit), five personality traits, among other relevant results. / 3. Frameworks for future large scale interventions in behaviour change. The implementation of both experiments required an applied use of theoretical and practical principles for the design of the experimental computational platforms. As a result, two frameworks were suggested for future interventions: an implementation framework and a data strategy framework

VCare: A Personal Emergency Response System to Promote Safe and Independent Living Among Elders Staying by Themselves in Community or Residential Settings

‘Population aging’ is a growing concern for most of us living in the twenty first century, primarily because many of us in the next few years will have a senior person to care for - spending money towards their healthcare expenditures AND/OR having to balance a full-time job with the responsibility of care-giving, travelling from another city to be with this elderly citizen who might be our parent, grand-parent or even community elders. As informal care-givers, if somehow we were able to monitor the day-to-day activities of our elderly dependents, and be alerted when wrong happens to them that would be of great help and lower the care-giving burden considerably. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can certainly help in such a scenario, with tools and techniques that ensure safe living for the individual we are caring for, and save us from a lot of worry by providing us with anytime access into their lives or activities, and as a result check their functional state. However, we should be mindful of the tactics that could be adopted by harm causers to steal data stored in these products and try to curb the associated service costs. In short, we are in need of robust, cost-effective, useful, and secure solutions to help elders in our society to ‘age gracefully’. This work is a little step taken towards that direction. ‘Population aging’ is a growing concern for most of us living in the twenty first century, primarily because many of us in the next few years will have a senior person to care for - spending money towards their healthcare expenditures AND/OR having to balance a full-time job with the responsibility of care-giving, travelling from another city to be with this elderly citizen who might be our parent, grand-parent or even community elders. As informal care-givers, if somehow we were able to monitor the day-to-day activities of our elderly dependents, and be alerted when wrong happens to them that would be of great help and lower the care-giving burden considerably. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can certainly help in such a scenario, with tools and techniques that ensure safe living for the individual we are caring for, and save us from a lot of worry by providing us with anytime access into their lives or activities, and as a result check their functional state. However, we should be mindful of the tactics that could be adopted by harm causers to steal data stored in these products and try to curb the associated service costs. In short, we are in need of robust, cost-effective, useful, and secure solutions to help elders in our society to ‘age gracefully’. This work is a little step taken towards that direction. Advisor: Tadeusz Wysock

Holistic System Design for Distributed National eHealth Services

publishedVersio

Young endurance athletes as users of sports information system: Case Polar Electro Oy

The topic of this Master’s thesis is Polar Flow sports information system, and young athletes as users of it. As a specific target group is the generation Z. The aim of the thesis is to find solutions to the following questions: Is the Polar Flow service in its current state interesting to the young users and what are the elements which make the service interesting to the young users? Answers for these questions were studied with usability testing, where the participants went through Polar Flow service simultaneously answering to questions. The UI views of the usability testing are presented in the research, followed by the development suggestions, which are based on the findings of the usability test. Findings show that Polar Flow service is interesting to the young competitive athletes. Elements, which make the service interesting are the following: the consistent design and accurate data about training, sleep and recovery.Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa aiheena on Polar Flow urheilutietojärjestelmä, ja nuoret urheilijat sen käyttäjinä. Nuorista tarkempana kohderyhmänä sukupolvi Z. Tutkimuksessa haetaan vastauksia kysymyksiin: onko Polar Flow palvelu tämän hetkisessä tilassa mielenkiintoinen nuorille käyttäjille ja mitkä elementit tekevät palvelusta mielenkiintoisen nuorille käyttäjille. Vastauksia näihin kysymyksiin on etsitty käytettävyystutkimuksella, jossa osallistujat kävivät läpi Polar Flow palvelua vastaten samalla kysymyksiin. Tutkimuksessa esitellään käytettävyystutkimuksen UI-näkymät, sekä kehitysehdotukset, jotka perustuvat käytettävyystutkimuksen löydöksiin. Tärkeimmät löydökset tutkimuksessa kertovat Polar Flow palvelun olevan mielenkiintoinen tavoitteellisesti treenaaville nuorille urheilijoille. Elementit, jotka tekevät palvelusta mielenkiintoisen, ovat johdonmukainen design palvelussa sekä tarkka data harjoittelusta, unesta ja palautumisesta

Design Strategy for Integrated Personal Health Records: Improving the User Experience of Digital Healthcare and Wellbeing

This dissertation addresses the timely problem of designing Integrated Personal Health Records (PHR). The goal is to provide citizens with digital user experiences, sustainable and flexible enough, for gaining control over their personal health information in a seamless way. Most importantly, so that people are able to reflect and act upon their selfknowledge, towards the accomplishment of their good health and wellbeing. Towards this end, the Integrated PHR as an emerging model in the field of Health IT, was the framework that set this research forward on exploring how communication and collaboration between patients and providers can be improved, which naturally impacts the field of HCI. Acknowledging that today patients are the ones who own all that is recorded about their health data, this new model was object of a design strategy that shaped the results presented in this dissertation. These have showed how patients can have more control of their health over time, through a patient-centered, organic system, which has the ability of combining multiple sources of data both from patient and provider side. As this new type of PHR fosters the creation of integrated networks, this milestone was achieved in this research by interacting with cross-channel user experiences that took part of nationwide healthcare ecosystems. The work presented herein, has demonstrated through the analysis and development of two use cases in cooperation with organizations connected to the Portuguese Ministry of Health, how an Integrated PHR can be a powerful personal tool, to be used by the citizen with undeniable value to the demands of an aging society. The use cases structured the thesis into two parts. The first part in collaboration with the Portuguese National Patient Portal, combines an Integrated PHR and incorporates the Portuguese Data Sharing Platform (PDS), which can be used by any Portuguese citizen. This use case study led to a proposal of the portal by also creating a foundational model for designing Integrated PHRs. The second part in collaboration with the Portuguese National Senior Telehealth Program (Saúde 24 Sénior), led to another proposal for an Integrated PHR, applying the outcomes from Part 1 and the requirements that derived from the findings explored in this second use case study. The proposed solution, has the potential to be used by the Portuguese senior community in the scope of home assistive care. Both proposals applied a user experience design methodology and included the development of two prototypes. The engagement of the stakeholders during the two case studies was accomplished with participatory design methods and followed a multidisciplinary approach to create solutions that would meet the human, politics and behavior interdependencies that were inherent to the process of working with large healthcare organizations. The provided contributions from this thesis intent to be part of a transition process that is changing the behavior of the healthcare sector, which is increasingly moving towards the improvement of the patient-provider relationship, patient engagement, collaborative care and positive computing, where digital technologies play a key role

HeyMoe: Leveraging virtual robot and game mechanics in mobile prototype application design for Chinese language learning

With the growth of internet technology, individuals currently have a better experience in using interactive systems like desktop computer software or mobile device applications than ever before. Moreover, using mobile phones in learning activities is becoming increasingly popular. However, the learning applications today do not fully meet the learner’s needs, especially for young adults who have some interest but lack fundamental knowledge in their study subjects. Combining mobile phone technology and game elements could make it possible to solve this problem. In this way, the limitations of location and the sometimes boring nature of the learning activities could be efficiently reduced. This study presents an idea of applying virtual robot and game elements to language learning activities and creating a mobile device application prototype to enhance the learner’s Chinese study experience

Supporting Diabetes Self-Management with Ubiquitous Computing Technologies: A User-Centered Inquiry

Ubiquitous computing technologies offer opportunities to improve treatments for chronic health conditions. Type 1 diabetes is a compelling use-case for such approaches, given its severity, and need for individuals to make frequent care decisions, informed by complex data. However, current apps, typically based on effortful reflection on collected data, generally show poor adoption, lack vital cognitive and emotional support, and are poorly tailored to users’ actual diabetes decision making processes. This thesis investigates how diabetes apps can be improved from a user-centered perspective. An initial questionnaire-based study investigated how well existing diabetes apps meet user needs. Perceived benefits, limitations, and reasons for low adoption rates were identified. A talk-aloud study of detailed user interactions with diabetes logging apps was conducted to characterize the benefits and limitations of diverse UI elements for T1 diabetes management, and to more precisely identify wider problems with current interaction designs. This led to positing a refined version of Mamykina et al.’s model for diabetes self-management, to account for observed practices, whereby the previously accepted habitual and sensemaking cognitive states are augmented by a posited ‘fluid contextual reasoning’ (FCR) mode, which allows multiple contextual factors to be balanced for dynamic course correction when navigating complex situations, using previously learned knowledge. To investigate user perceptions of the levels and kinds of monitoring anticipated in next generation diabetes decision support systems, a 4-week technology probe, in which participants used multiple networked devices and external data aggregation, was used to frame requirements for user-centered development of such future systems. Integrating all of the above work, an iterative design process was undertaken to create DUETS, a card-based system to facilitate reflection by designers, users, and other stakeholders on diabetes support management systems. The resulting tool and method were then implemented and evaluated through structured sessions with stakeholder focus groups

OneMile: An Interactive Journey to Wellness for Those with Chronic Illness

Using interaction design, video, and social media to create an application that will encourage people to maintain or improve their quality of life when dealing with a chronic illness. There are many tools, both tangible and online, for people with debilitating illnesses. There are websites and apps that focus on symptom management, medication monitoring or general wellness. The majority of these resources are mainly used for rehabilitation. There is technology used to help people, both healthy and those with an illness, to improve their health–featuring exercise, eating healthy, tips and tricks. Most people with a chronic illness are looking for ways they can be healthy, or ways to maintain their health; they want to be pro-active in their healthy journey. Multiple Sclerosis is one of these chronic illness–the people who have it may be active and mobile and they are looking for something to help them stay motivated and/or to improve their health. They are not looking for something to help with rehabilitation, because most of these people do not need rehab; they want something to encourage them on quest to healthy and wellness. The needs of the target audience (people with MS) would benefit from a combination of mediums that would lend itself to the idea of activities to fully explore all of the potential aspects of a person’s illness and to motivate them to life a healthy life. The purpose of the activities would be so each user could choose exactly what he or she wants and needs to work on. Cognitive exercises, fine motor skill exercises, social connections and suggested physical movement and recipes will help the user stay motivated. Elements of gamification will help create an active environment for the user and allow them to be motivated and excited to pursue wellness in their lives

Developing human-centred framework and guidelines for disc golf application design

Abstract. Disc golf is an increasingly popular sport, especially in Finland and the USA. The disc golf industry and Professional Disc Golf Association have proceeded in the digital transformation; therefore, disc golf applications have penetrated the markets. There is a need for evaluating and developing the current quality of disc golf application design and looking for general guidelines for designing comprehensive applications. This thesis aims to study what kind of framework is hidden behind the disc golf application design from a human-centred perspective when also several stakeholders are concerned. The study is based on theoretical and empirical research. Theoretical research is conducted by literary review of existing disc golf application design guidelines, together with human-centred design, user-centred design, and stakeholder-centred design theory and methodologies in general. Nevertheless, a research gap is found as far as disc golf, golf, and sports application design are concerned. Thus, the review expands to study field practitioners and mobile health context. The literary review also examines disc golf as a sport and in numbers, together with current disc golf applications. Empirical research adapts human-centred design methods by studying users’ expectations, needs, and wishes in the mean of questionnaires, and interviews. Also, the context of use is identified and visited, user requirements are mapped, disc golf personas are created, and the disc golf application’s stakeholders are identified. Then, the method adapted from service-dominant logic is used for preparing value proposals for all disc golf application users, and other stakeholders. By adapting the design guidelines from the literature and empirical findings, the human-centred guidelines for disc golf application design (HGDG) framework is presented as the first main finding of the thesis. The HGDG framework can be used for disc golf application design and ensuring the usage of the human-centred approach. The second main finding, 15 design guidelines and instructions for disc golf application design reinforces the HGDG framework. The third main finding suggests using 15 design guidelines as a metric for evaluating if the designed application achieves an ideal win-win-…-win situation between of application provider, users, and other stakeholders