Demand responsive transport as a social innovation - the case of Skewiel mobiel

People are increasingly growing older. Growing older is likely to come with, for example, decreasing mobility and therefore increasing dependency. This can reduce the social connectedness of older people. As an effect, a social challenge is growing: loneliness. In response to this challenge, local governments offer mobility services that the elderly can use to go out. However, from our test bed of a mobility product-service system for seniors, we learned that many such services focus too much on transporting people from A to B, while the user experience of the service leaves room for improvement. In this paper we discuss how a demand responsive transport system, set-up as a social innovation, improves social connectedness, instead of delivering mobility alone. We found that the service itself provides social satisfaction, and that the service was not necessarily used for social activities. Rather, the service was used for activities of daily life

Stepwise Design and Evaluation of a Values-Oriented Ambient Intelligence Healthcare Monitoring Platform

Contains fulltext : 251562.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)OBJECTIVES: The majority of all developed digital health technologies do not reach successful implementation. A discrepancy among technology design, the context of use, and user needs and values is identified as the main reason for this failure. Value-sensitive design (VSD) is a design method enabling to align design with user values by embedding values in technology, yet the method is lacking clear heuristics for practical application. To improve the successful design and implementation of digital health, we propose and evaluate a stepwise approach to VSD. METHODS: The approach consists of the phases: experiment, demonstrate, and validate. Experiment takes place in an office to create makeshift solutions. Demonstrate takes place in a mock-up environment and aims to optimize design requirements through user feedback. The validate phase takes place in an authentic care situation and studies how the novel technology affects current workflows. RESULTS: We applied the stepwise VSD approach to the design of a hospital-based ambient intelligence solution for remotely and continuously monitoring quality and safety of patient care. We particularly focused on embodiment of the values of safety, privacy, and inclusiveness in the design. Design activities of the experiment and demonstrate phase are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: A stepwise approach to VSD enables a design to optimally meet the values of all users involved, while aligning the design process with the practical limitations of healthcare institutions. We discuss some benefits and challenges related to VSD and the potential for transfer of this approach to other digital health solutions

Towards environments that have a sense of humor

Humans have humorous conversations and interactions. Nowadays our real life existence is integrated with our life in social media, videogames, mixed reality and physical environments that sense our activities and that can adapt appearance and properties due to our activities. There are other inhabitants in these environments, not only human, but also virtual agents and social robots with which we interact and who decide about their participation in activities. In this paper we look at designing humor and humor opportunities in such environments, providing them with a sense of humor, and able to recognize opportunities to generate humorous interactions or events on the fly. Opportunities, made possible by introducing incongruities, can be exploited by the environment itself, or they can be communicated to its inhabitants

Sensory incongruity and surprise in product design

People continuously experience the world and the objects in it through all their senses. Product designers can influence the way people experience products by paying attention to the multiple sensory aspects of product design. Designing sensory experiences can be aimed at communicating a consistent message to all sensory channels, making this message a stronger one. The opposite approach, designing a product in a way that incongruent information is provided to different senses, can be used as a means to create surprising products. Perceiving one sensory aspect of a product first can create an expectation on what will be perceived through other sense modalities. The information perceived at a later stage may disconfirm the expectation formed upon the initial perception, resulting in a surprise reaction. In this thesis, three types of sensory incongruities were studied: visual-tactual, visual-auditory and visual-olfactory. Our studies suggest that out of the three types of incongruities that were studied, visual-tactual incongruities in products are most effective in evoking surprise reactions. Furthermore, the surprise reaction seems to have a long-term effect on 3 other emotions: interest, fascination and confusion. From the experiments on visual-auditory and visual-olfactory incongruity we concluded that people seem less likely to experience surprise upon encountering one of these types of sensory incongruities. Nevertheless, the sound of a product can in some cases influence the overall perceived expression of that product. Designers should always carefully consider whether to design a sensory incongruity or a product that communicates a consistent message to all sensory channels.Industrial Design Engineerin

User acceptance in a changing context: why some product-service systems do not suffer acceptance problems

The Western world is increasingly moving towards a service-oriented economy. The concept of product-service systems (PSSs) can help to deal with this transition. However, users and businesses are generally required to change their normal way of behaving to adhere to a PSS and this often acts as a barrier for successful implementation. This lack of required behavioural change often results in poor user acceptance and many PSS initiatives fail after successful pilot projects. Various measures are put forward to improve acceptance, but not all measures focus on changing user habits. This paper argues that PSSs can be more powerful in gaining user acceptance when they are designed to address lost habits, owing to unwillingly changed behaviou

What Do Older Adults and Clinicians Think About Traditional Mobility Aids and Exoskeleton Technology?

Mobility impairments can prevent older adults from performing their daily activities, which highly impacts quality of life. Powered exoskeletons, which are wearable robotic devices, can assist older adults by providing additional support to compensate for age-related decline in muscle strength. To date, little is known about the opinions and needs of older adults regarding exoskeletons, as current research primarily focuses on the technical development of exoskeleton devices and on groups with more severe mobility impairments such as people with spinal cord injuries. Therefore, the aim of this article is to inform the design of exoskeletons for older adults from a person-centered perspective. Interviews were conducted with seven older adults and six clinicians. Results indicated that exoskeletons can be a valuable addition to existing mobility devices to support older adults during walking and other actions necessary to perform their daily activities. Although reactions towards the concept of exoskeleton technology were positive, older adults did not currently perceive the need for an exoskeleton device. Exoskeletons for older adults should be easy to use; preferably, users should be able to put the device on and take it off independently. Moreover, the appearance of the exoskeleton should be as inconspicuous as possible, as most older adults do not like to advertise their need for assistive devices. At this point in time, the willingness to use exoskeleton technology will depend on personal needs and preferences

What Do Older Adults and Clinicians Think About Traditional Mobility Aids and Exoskeleton Technology?

Mobility impairments can prevent older adults from performing their daily activities, which highly impacts quality of life. Powered exoskeletons, which are wearable robotic devices, can assist older adults by providing additional support to compensate for age-related decline in muscle strength. To date, little is known about the opinions and needs of older adults regarding exoskeletons, as current research primarily focuses on the technical development of exoskeleton devices and on groups with more severe mobility impairments such as people with spinal cord injuries. Therefore, the aim of this article is to inform the design of exoskeletons for older adults from a person-centered perspective. Interviews were conducted with seven older adults and six clinicians. Results indicated that exoskeletons can be a valuable addition to existing mobility devices to support older adults during walking and other actions necessary to perform their daily activities. Although reactions towards the concept of exoskeleton technology were positive, older adults did not currently perceive the need for an exoskeleton device. Exoskeletons for older adults should be easy to use; preferably, users should be able to put the device on and take it off independently. Moreover, the appearance of the exoskeleton should be as inconspicuous as possible, as most older adults do not like to advertise their need for assistive devices. At this point in time, the willingness to use exoskeleton technology will depend on personal needs and preferences

Effects of visual-auditory incongruity on product expression and surprise

Product experience is influenced by information from all the senses. Our experiments provide insight into how sounds contribute to the overall experience of a product’s expression. We manipulated the sounds of dust busters and juicers so that they either did or did not fit the expressions of the products’ appearances. In some, but not all cases, we found an inverse relationship between the degree-of-fit of a sound and the degree of surprise evoked. Furthermore, we found in some cases that the expression of a product’s sound influenced the overall expression of that productIndustrial Design Engineerin

Should Mary smell like biscuit? Investigation scents in product design

In attempt to influence how a product is experienced, designers can manipulate all aspects of a product, including odor. The effect odor has on a consumer’s experience of the product is still not yet understood. Two experiments were conducted in order to shed more light on the influence odor has on consumers. In Experiment 1, differences in people’s reactions to congruent and incongruent odors for products that normally have an odor (e.g., lemons) and for products that normally do not have an odor (e.g., kitchen paper holder) were investigated. All scented products were found to be surprising, and were evaluated moderately positively. In Experiment 2, the effects of the degree of inappropriateness of odors on the evaluations of products that normally do not have an odor were investigated. Although ratings for degree of fit obtained in a pre-study showed that our manipulations were successful, no significant effects were found for the degree of inappropriateness on overall product evaluations in the main study. This may stem from the fact that because scent is a relatively unimportant attribute for the products used in our experiment, its contribution to the overall evaluation is difficult to measure on rating scales. However, participants’ comments suggest that odors do play a role in their evaluations. Therefore, this investigation sets forth that product designers should not ignore the potential effects of odorsIndustrial Design Engineerin