Grønbæk, Kaj

Merritt, Timothy

English

Research in Architecture, Design and Conservation

 Health and Welfare IT Product Design: 
Lessons Learned from a Design Class
 
 
Abstract 
In this paper we describe the outcomes from a 
university design class focused on the design of 
systems intended to solve problems faced by health 
care professionals, patients and systems that support 
welfare or extended independence for older people. The 
students worked in groups for 10 weeks finding a 
suitable problem to solve, iterating and refining their 
designs, evaluating prototypes with users, and finally 
presenting their work as a potential product with a 
detailed plan for how the product would be sold in the 
market. The primary contribution of this paper is to 
share innovative design ideas with the design 
community and to reflect on lessons learned by the 
students who, for the first time, were designing robust 
prototypes that solve real world problems. 
Author Keywords 
Health; Welfare; Rehabilitation; Experience 
Prototyping; Design education 
ACM Classification Keywords 
H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., 
HCI): Miscellaneous. 
Introduction 
The user centered design approach can help in the 
design and refinement of prototypes that solve 
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). 
Tim Merritt 
Aarhus School of Architecture 
Nørreport 20 
Aarhus 8000 Denmark 
timothy.merritt@aarch.dk 
 
Kaj Grønbæk 
University of Aarhus 
Åbogade 34 
Aarhus 8200 Denmark 
kgronbak@cs.au.dk 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
problems or satisfy important human needs. As well 
summarized in [1], user centered design is 
fundamental to cooperative prototyping [2], 
cooperative design [3], ergonomics, usability, and 
experience design among others. The process of 
becoming a proficient technology designer and learning 
when to use the appropriate methods and skills 
involves building up technical proficiency, techniques of 
involving the user and solving problems. Actually doing 
design and involving experiential learning, 
experimentation with feedback and guidance [4] is 
perhaps where students learn some of the most critical 
skills including working within deadlines, carefully 
focusing resources and efforts most effectively, refining 
communication skills with users and interested publics, 
etc. 
There are various examples of research that document 
the design refinements of a system and the lessons 
learned from user evaluation. Less common, however, 
are works that recount findings from working with 
groups of student designers who are tasked with 
finding and designing for a problem in the real world 
related to health, welfare, or rehabilitation. With 
freedom to choose and pursue a problem in the real 
world, what would IT design students select and what 
types of products would they design? What challenges 
would they face? 
This paper is organized as follows: the design class and 
the design assignment are described, an overview is 
provided of the projects developed, and discussion is 
provided highlighting some of the lessons learned. It is 
our aim that this review of the challenges and 
achievements can remind other designers of important 
issues as we design technologies for health, welfare, 
and perhaps any time we as designers set out to 
improve the lives of others with our designs.  
IT Product Design Project Class 
As a required course at the end of the first year of 
bachelor studies, students in the IT product design 
program at the Aarhus University attend an intensive 
ten-week class in which they pull together all of the 
knowledge and experience from previous classes. 
Under tight deadlines, the students work in groups of 
2-4 to design, iterate, and develop functional 
prototypes that demonstrate their skills in web 
technologies, physical design, physical computing, 
business plan development, and evaluation of 
prototypes. Therefore, the final product design should 
involve electronic sensing and/or actuation, 
communication using web technologies, and should 
involve a business plan for bringing the product to 
market.  The 2012 class was tasked with finding a 
health, welfare, or rehabilitation related problem that 
could be improved through the design of a digital 
technology product. Students were free to choose any 
problem, ailment, illness, or related human need.  
Each week, the design groups had to submit written 
assignments, which built up to a final written report. 
Their prototype products were continually evaluated by 
the instructors of the course to ensure that they 
satisfied the constraints of the assignment, and 
teaching assistants who have taken the class in 
previous years were available to the class to ask 
questions, share their experiences, and to obtain 
additional guidance as needed.  At the end of the 
course, an exhibition was held, during which the 
students presented and demonstrated their product 
  
prototypes to the general public and specially invited 
members of the business and research community. 
Overview of Product Prototypes 
We now provide an overview of some of the prototype 
concepts developed by the student groups. These can 
be broadly grouped into three categories including 
products focused on rehabilitation, medical monitoring 
systems, and products focused on improving general 
health and welfare. These systems are now briefly 
described. 
Rehabilitation 
There were four prototypes that focused on helping 
people undergoing rehabilitation from injuries including 
whiplash, knee injuries, arm injuries, and impaired 
flexibility. We now describe these briefly: 
• MoRe (More Rehabilitation) is a knee brace that 
measures the position of the knee and uses that 
position to control an onscreen avatar in a game that 
encourages the patient to do their exercises correctly 
and regularly. 
• ZensIT is a portable elastic resistance band with 
embedded electronics that measures exercises 
completed and uploads progress to a patient 
management system. 
• WhiRe (Whiplash Rehabber) is a whiplash injury test 
system that can be used to build exercise games to 
encourage strengthening when appropriate. It utilizes a 
head-mounted laser, camera tracking and an online 
database to track progress. 
• KARES (Kinect Aided Rehabilitation Exercise System) 
utilizes a Microsoft Kinect system to sense the body 
position in real time as the patient performs their 
rehabilitation exercises. By providing encouragement 
and game like features, the patient is motivated to give 
appropriate effort. 
Medical Monitoring 
Four prototypes were designed to provide real time 
monitoring for critical health conditions and prevention 
of injuries. These include two systems that measure 
body position to prevent injuries, a system to monitor 
and maintain proper blood sugar levels for diabetics, 
and a medicine dispensing system. We describe these 
now: 
• HipBuzz is a pair of undershorts with embedded 
sensors that prevent dangerous joint movements for 
hip replacement patients 
• ERAIS (Ergonomic Aiding Seat) is a wheelchair 
positioning system that provides real-time visual 
feedback to nurses who position quadriplegic patients in 
order to prevent injuries from incorrect posture. 
• BlissTECH is a diabetes management system for 
children and parents that continually measures and 
responds to the blood sugar levels of children in order 
to reduce blood sugar spikes and to encourage better 
self-management of diabetes. 
• HAPS’en is a medication dispensing system for the 
home that ensures patients take the proper 
medications at the right time through a managed 
scheduling system, a desktop dispenser and portable 
pillbox. 
WiRe: Whiplash Rehabber uses a 
head-mounted laser and camera 
tracking to aid testing and 
rehabilitation of whiplash patients.  
ERAIS: Ergonomic Aiding Seat 
enables a nurse to correctly 
position a patient by monitoring 
pressure data from the wheelchair 
seat, which is displayed on the LED 
display at left.  
  
Health and Wellbeing 
Six of the groups designed prototype products that 
focused on improving health and wellbeing including 
two systems that encourage exercise through social 
engagement, two other systems provide new ways for 
families to remain connected, another system provides 
food allergy information at an in-store kiosk, and 
communication system simplifies the connected 
experience for older people in an assisted living 
residence. We now describe these briefly: 
• DareBox is a Kinect-based system that measures 
exercise performance and encourages increased activity 
through an online social challenge system. 
• BeChange is a family health and activity tracking 
system that involves a wristband that measures 
exercise performance, a shared scale to track weight 
loss, and a social motivation system centered around a 
control console in the home. 
• SMILE is a communication system for families that 
enables older family members to send and receive 
emails with younger family members by allowing them 
to write a handwritten letter, insert it into a mailbox, 
and send it to the family member using a physical 
token. The family member can respond through normal 
email, which is delivered as a physical letter in the 
older family member’s mailbox. 
• E-ROC (Electronic Reminder, Organizer, 
Communicator) is a teddy bear based communication 
system that allows the family to communicate with 
each other through the tangible plush doll. It aims to 
simplify the use of electronic communication and 
enhance family ties through the caring feelings of the 
plush toys. 
• CHE is an in-store interactive kiosk for people with 
food allergies. It enables the customer to scan an item 
and determine whether or not it contains ingredients to 
which they are allergic. 
• EaCe (Easy) is an assisted living communication 
system with large simple button based navigation that 
enables older people to take a more active role in their 
assisted care by making food choices, rating service 
experiences, and communicating with others. 
Lessons Learned 
With 14 groups all designing different products, there 
were obviously many challenges that were faced and 
overcome. Of these, there were a few lessons that are 
particularly relevant for designers of health and welfare 
technologies. In the following paragraphs we discuss 
the challenges of the designer as an outsider, issues 
resulting from a compressed timeline, and domain 
specific technical challenges. 
 
Designer as an Outsider 
The students had to identify the most helpful potential 
users and learn quickly about real world problems they 
faced.  The identification of an appropriate problem to 
solve was made easier by meeting with users with 
specific and detailed knowledge.  Additionally, in some 
cases, healthcare professionals resisted new technology 
solutions, which required careful consideration and 
communication by the designers.   
 
The design groups visited people receiving care, 
healthcare organizations and specialists attempting to 
Virtual model of the BeChange hub 
used to recharge the personal 
wristbands.  The central hub 
encourages the family to work 
together toward their fitness goals.  
Virtual model of the DareBox 
sensor with touch screen display 
tracks the exercise behaviors of the 
users and enables them to 
challenge their friends to complete 
exercise tasks.  
  
identify a relevant welfare problem and solution.  
Groups who got hold of healthcare professionals with 
expertise in specific areas or a patient organization with 
in-depth knowledge were able to provide better 
evidence for the generality of proposed product designs 
than where groups that identified and focused on a 
specific problem identified by just a few patients or 
recipients of care.   
 
Many of the groups faced resistance from the medical 
professionals who claimed to not have enough time to 
spend with them. The students learned to research 
before visiting a clinic in order to be able to understand 
some of the terminology and to gain a sense of the 
types of activities involved in the respective facility. 
Some medical care professionals were worried that 
computers were increasingly taking over jobs and 
reducing professionals to maintaining machines in the 
future resulting in larger patient to caregiver ratios and 
less personal service.  Some groups were able to 
address this concern by demonstrating how digital 
technologies can increase the quality of care, which 
ultimately is a goal they share.  
 
Challenges of a compressed timeline 
As noted earlier, the entire class lasted only ten weeks.  
Under these tight time constraints, the students had to 
speed up the development process carefully an mitigate 
challenges involving users with difficulties providing 
feedback, and conducting short user evaluations when 
refining the prototypes.   
Various teams encountered users who were challenging 
to involve in the user-centered design process.  For 
example, older people at nursing homes were in some 
case too weak to be involved or could only be involved 
for short periods of time.  Additionally, people with 
temporary or permanent disabilities can be hard to 
involve practically in prototype evaluations, since that 
requires professional support and careful review before 
and during participation.   
The main lesson learned from the compressed timeline 
was the renewed realization that user centered design 
requires long-term commitments and patience.  This is 
especially true for technologies that engage users with 
reduced physical or mental capacities.   
Domain-specific technical challenges  
Designing prototypes for the healthcare or welfare 
industry often involves interfacing with other 
technologies that can be expensive or difficult to 
obtain.  Furthermore, demonstrating semi-functional 
design prototypes requires careful trade offs in 
functionality and form.   
As an example of challenges of special equipment, the 
team that designed the BlissTECH system required a 
continuous data feed from a wireless blood sugar 
sensor embedded in the patient's body.  That new 
sensor technology is very costly and difficult to get 
obtain.  Thus the conceptual prototyping process had to 
rely on many assumptions and simulations of the data 
stream utilizing Wizard of Oz techniques.  Although this 
made it easier to demonstrate the design concept, 
direct user evaluation with live data could not be 
achieved. 
Another example of this domain specific challenge of 
deciding where to focus efforts and resources came up 
in the ERAIS patient positioning system.  The designers 
believed the system should be truly portable, however, 
  
to build in wireless communication among components 
and install batteries for each component would take 
away their focus on the general design of the system.  
As a work-around, the design group tethered the device 
with control and power wires in order to focus efforts 
on improving the sensing, actuation, and physical 
design of the prototype in order to support evaluations 
of the system with users. 
Conclusion 
In this paper we described health, welfare, and medical 
product prototypes developed by technology design 
students in an intensive ten-week course. We discussed 
some of the lessons learned from the perspective of the 
instructors of the course with the objective of drawing 
attention to common issues and challenges faced when 
designers attempt to develop technologies. 
This same intensive course is completed by all students 
completing their first year of bachelor studies in the 
degree program and serves as a useful way to activate 
knowledge gathered from technical, business, and 
design related courses. By following the progress of the 
students and reviewing the challenges they face, we 
can all be reminded to give more attention to well-
known design practices, especially when designing 
systems for the health and welfare industry. The field of 
medical technologies is developing rapidly, with 
advancements on every front. In terms of digital 
technologies, the field is being revolutionized by the 
miniaturization of components and interdisciplinary 
design work i.e. embedded electronics in pills, etc. [5]. 
We encourage others to share their lessons learned as 
we work together designing systems that preserve and 
improve lives. 
Acknowledgements 
We thank all the students from the Aarhus University’s 
Product Design Project class from Spring 2012.  A list of 
all student designers by project is available on the 
course website (http://bit.ly/ITPDP-2012-DesignerList). 
References 
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34(3), Special Issue on CSCW, pp. 453-478. 
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Cooperative Design:

Cooperative Prototyping: Users and Designers in Mutual Activity

Learning approaches for teaching interaction design, in Inventivity: Teaching theory, design and innovation in HCI,

No more skipping your medicine – FDA approves first digital pill. http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/08/09/n o-more-skipping-your-medicine-fda-approves-firstdigital-pill/.

User-centered design and fundamental need.

Health and Welfare IT Product Design:Lessons Learned from a Design Class

Health and Welfare IT Product Design:Lessons Learned from a Design Class

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