Seeking New Insights: A Design Thinking Approach to Persuasive Technology Aimed at Supporting Clients of a Weight Management Program

The application of persuasive technology has been shown to be effective in a weight management context. However, it has been observed that the impact is not as significant as predicted. The aim of this project was to investigate whether a Design Thinking approach could generate new insights that could be used to drive the development of an innovative application to help people on their weight management journey. Findings show that although no radically new user needs were identified, the needs that users did express most pertinently are not effectively met by currently available technology. Further, we examined the Design Thinking approach itself and sought to identify criteria for the design of successful insight gathering activities, through end-user engagement. We summarize these at the end of this paper

Running to behavior change

Levels of overweight and obese individuals have been seen as rising across the globe. This has caused concerns with regard to how active individuals are and realization that a high percentage of the population do not meet the weekly requirement of physical activity. Current focus has been on the capabilities that new technologies can offer as an intervention technique. This paper offers an initial investigation into one such technology, namely the iPod Nike+ kit, which acts as a tracker for running behaviors. This scoping study was conducted via a questionnaire and analysis of customer reviews. Participants were assessed on their stage of change for physical activity behavior, based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM), before and after using the technology. The results from this study showed that the technology was received positively from those who used it and the predominant outcome was that individuals were more enthusiastic about running

Use of the Internet for Remote Train Monitoring

Railways and mass transit transportation systems are experiencing a new growth that will have an important social impact in the global transport domain. Therefore new important steps are required to advance the urgent needs, such as interoperability at train and vehicle levels, support for commissioning and maintenance, communication with ground infrastructure and introduction of new services. The ROSIN project aims at the validation of a complete and open platform, which will be the basis for a new generation of vehicles, consisting of an on-board network that interconnects all various on-board systems and subsystems. Taking advantage of a 10 year effort to specify a standard Train Communication Network (TCN), carried out within the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) by Technical Committee 9, Working Group 22, the ROSIN project aims to work out a comprehensive solution that closely addresses users requirements and has been validated and demonstrated extensively, using available technology, in a wide range of applications. The project covers all aspects of the on-board networking problems, addressing key areas such as passenger trains, freight trains and mass-transit (metros and trams). Communication and application requirements are considered, including maintenance needs and openness toward ground networks. Internet technologies are used to bring ubiquitous and low cost access to train data

Changing eating behaviors through a cooking-based website for the whole family

This paper reports on the results of a study investigating how nutritional eating behaviors can be improved by presenting a cooking-based website for parents to use with their children. Participants' eating behaviors were closely monitored via questionnaires and food diaries. Results show that over the course of the study, children's willingness to consume fruit and vegetables had improved and they enjoyed participating in food preparation. This was supported by the participants' food diaries, which showed a statistically significant increase in the number of portions of fruit and vegetables consumed by both children and parents. An attempt was made to place participants in a stage of change before and after the study (Transtheoretical Model). This was flawed, however, due to inaccurate measurements and the short study duration. Overall, this study provides support for the use of educational websites, in particular a cooking website, to improve nutritional eating behaviors in children. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Parametric Modelling of EEG Data for the Identification of Mental Tasks

Electroencephalographic (EEG) data is widely used as a biosignal for the identification of different mental states in the human brain. EEG signals can be captured by relatively inexpensive equipment and acquisition procedures are non-invasive and not overly complicated. On the negative side, EEG signals are characterized by low signal-to-noise ratio and non-stationary characteristics, which makes the processing of such signals for the extraction of useful information a challenging task.peer-reviewe

WiBAF into a CMS: Personalization in learning environments made easy

Adaptivity has proven successful in reducing navigation and comprehension problems in hypermedia documents. Authoring of adaptive hypermedia documents and especially of the adaptivity in these documents has been problematic or at least labour intensive throughout AH history. This paper shows how the integration of a CMS with an adaptive framework greatly simplifies the inclusion of personalization in existing educational applications. It does this within the context of European project Autism&Uni that uses adaptive hypermedia to offer information for students transitioning from high school to university, especially to cater for students on the autism spectrum as well as for non-autistic students. The use of our Within Browser adaptation framework (WiBAF) reduces privacy concerns because the user model is stored on the end-user's machine, and eliminates performance issues that currently prevent the adoption of adaptivity in MOOC platforms by having the adaptation performed on the end-user's machine as well (within the browser). Authoring of adaptive applications within the educational domain with the system proposed was tried out with first year students from the Design-Based Learning Hypermedia course at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) to gather feedback on the problems they faced with the platform

Adaptive web-based educational application for autistic students

Adaptive web-based applications have proven successful in reducing navigation and comprehension problems in hypermedia documents. In this paper, we describe a toolkit that is offered as an adaptive Web-based application to help autistic students incorporate to high education. The toolkit has been developed using a popular CMS in which we have integrated a client-side adaptation library. The toolkit described here was tried out during workshops with autistic students at Leeds Becketts University to gather (mostly qualitative) feedback on the adaptation and privacy aspects of the Autism&Uni platform. That feedback was later used to improve the toolkit

Participatory Methods to Engage Autistic People in the Design of Digital Technology: A Systematic Literature Review

Purpose Many technology designers strive to involve end users in the design process, aiming to produce better outcomes. However, designers may struggle to engage autistic users effectively due to a lack of understanding of autistic characteristics and preferences. This systematic literature review aimed to identify how autistic adolescents and adults can best be engaged in effective participatory design activities. Methods Seven databases were searched for articles reporting technology design involving autistic people, returning 276 results. Using the PRISMA approach, 258 were excluded due to not meeting the inclusion criteria. The remaining 18 articles were then quality assessed. Results A thematic analysis revealed five core themes: (1) Engagement: the importance of investment in, and ownership of, the design process to create engagement, (2) Relationships: building relationships through collaboration and careful facilitation, (3) Skills development: the development of personal skills such as teamwork, design and self-advocacy in order to grow confidence, (4) Structure: providing context and structure to make the design experience feel safe and predictable, and (5) Support: the importance of support and consideration of individual needs as well as discouraging negative behaviours. Conclusion Valuing participants as equal partners in design emerged as an, arguably, universal principle. The specific needs and preferences of autistic people must be understood and respected by designers. This goes beyond obvious accommodations such as providing a quiet and safe environment, and requires a deeper, more personal engagement with the individuals and their interests. We provide tangible recommendations for increasing engagement and aiding the design process