Nervo Verdezoto

Beyond self-monitoring: understanding non-functional aspects of home-based healthcare technology

Monitoring of health parameters in non-clinical settings is one strategy to address the increasingly aging population and age-related disabilities and diseases. However, challenges exist when introducing self-monitoring activities in peoples everyday life. An active lifestyle can challenge the appropriation of healthcare technologies and people with comorbidity may have diverse but co-existing monitoring needs. In this paper, we seek to understand home-based health monitoring practices to better design and integrate them into peoples everyday life. We perform an analysis of socio-technical complexities in home-based healthcare technologies through three case studies of self-monitoring: 1) pre-eclampsia (i.e. pregnancy poisoning), 2) heart conditions, and 3) preventive care. Through the analysis seven themes emerged (people, resources, places, routines, knowledge, control and motivation) that can facilitate the understanding of home-based healthcare activities. We present three modes of self-monitoring use and provide a set of design recommendations for future Ubicomp designs of home-based healthcare technology.

MediFrame: A Tablet Application to Plan, Inform, Remind and Sustain Older Adults' Medication Intake

Healthcare activities in private home settings that are not supervised by a healthcare professional can challenge older adults. To support such unsupervised care activities, an increasingly number of reminders and monitoring systems are designed. However, most of these systems target a specific treatment or a specific condition. In this paper, we discuss experiences from designing the tablet-based application MediFrame. MediFrame is a personal medication management system to support older adults in non-clinical settings such as the home. The paper describes the user-centered design process and the resulting tablet application. We show how MediFrame can be used to support adherence in medical treatments through fieldwork informed use scenarios. Based on early qualitative feedback, we also discuss lessons learned and how designers can support a holistic medication experience for an older adults everyday life.

Challenge: Getting Residential Users to Shift Their Electricity Usage Patterns

Increased renewable electricity production, coupled with emerging sectors of electricity consumption such as electric vehicles, has led to the desire to shift the times of the day electricity is consumed to better match generation. Different methods have been proposed to shift residential electricity use from the less desirable times to more desirable times, including: feedback technology, pricing incentives, smart appliances, and energy storage. Based on our experience in this area, we present three challenges for residential shifting: getting users to understand the concept of shifting, determining when to shift and communicating that to users, and accounting for the dynamic nature of shifting. We argue that encouraging residential electricity shifting is much more challenging than electricity curtailment, and suggest an increased focus on understanding the everyday practices of users, which are crucial in order to shift electricity use.

Tough Shift: Exploring the Complexities of Shifting Residential Electricity Use Through a Casual Mobile Game

Modern electrical grids are increasingly reliant on generation from renewable sources that can vary from hour to hour. This variability has led to the desire to shift the times of the day when electricity is consumed to better match generation. One way to achieve these shifts is by encouraging people to change their behavior at home. Leveraging prior research on encouraging reductions in residential energy use through game play, we introduce ShareBuddy: a casual mobile game intended to encourage players not only to reduce, but also to shift their electricity use. We conducted two field studies in a student dormitory and found that players did not shift their electricity use, because they were unwilling to change their schedules and found it easier to focus on reducing electricity use. Based on our findings, we discuss the implications for encouraging shifting, and also the challenges of integrating real-world resource use into a game.

On preventive blood pressure self-monitoring at home

Self-monitoring activities are increasingly becoming part of people’s everyday lives. Some of these measurements are taken voluntarily rather than being referred by a physician and conducted because of either a preventive health interest or to better understand the body and its functions (the so-called Quantified Self). In this article, we explore socio-technical complexities that may occur when introducing preventive health-measurement technologies into older adults’ daily routines and everyday lives. In particular, the original study investigated blood pressure (BP) measurement in non-clinical settings, to understand existing challenges, and uncover opportunities for self-monitoring technologies to support preventive healthcare activities among older adults. From our study, several important aspects emerged to consider when designing preventive self-monitoring technology, such as the complexity of guidelines for self-measuring, the importance of interpretation, understanding and health awareness, sharing self-monitoring information for prevention, various motivational factors, the role of the doctor in prevention, and the home as a distributed information space. An awareness of these aspects can help designers to develop better tools to support people’s preventive self-monitoring needs, compared to existing solutions. Supporting the active and informed individual can help improve people’s self-care, awareness, and implementation of preventive care. Based on our study, we also reflect on the findings to illustrate how these aspects can both inform people engaged in Quantified Self activities and designers alike, and the tools and approaches that have sprung from the so-called Quantified Self movement.

EcoBears: augmenting everyday appliances with symbolic and peripheral feedback

This paper introduces the EcoBears concept that aims to augment household appliances with functional and aesthetic features to promote their use and longevity of use to prevent their disposal. The EcoBears also aim to support the communication of environmental issues in the home setting. The initial design and implementation of the EcoBears that consist of two bear modules (a mother and her cub) is presented as well as the preliminary concept validation and lessons learned to be considered for future work.

Collaborative Appropriation: How Couples, Teams, Groups and Communities Adapt and Adopt Technologies

Previous workshops examined how individual users adopt and adapt technologies to meet local needs, “completing design through use.” However, there has been little systematic study of how groups engage collaboratively in these activities. This workshop opens a discussion for these forms of collaborative appropriation, including field studies, design explorations, theoretical accounts, and critical reflections. We invite submissions addressing the following and other topics in collaborative appropriation: Practical experiences in design for collaborative appropriation Flexible, open design and tailorability as support for collaborative appropriation Design goals, guidelines, and principles for collaborative appropriation Major drivers to design for collaborative appropriation Emergent roles (actors) in collaborative appropriation practices Characterization and differentiation of collaborative appropriation between couples, teams, groups, and communities Lessons learned from other design movements and research domains to inform the design for collaborative appropriation

DogPulse: augmenting the coordination of dog walking through an ambient awareness system at home

This paper presents DogPulse, an ambient awareness system to support the coordination of dog walking among family members at home. DogPulse augments a dog collar and leash set to activate an ambient shape-changing lamp and visualize the last time the dog was taken for a walk. The lamp gradually changes its form and pulsates its lights in order to keep the family members aware of the dog walking activity. We report the iterative prototyping of DogPulse, its implementation and its preliminary evaluation. Based on our initial findings, we present the limitations and lessons learned as well as highlight recommendations for future work.

Designing self-care for everyday life

Managing chronic conditions can be challenging. People in such conditions, and the people around them, have to: deal with symptoms, adapt to the resulting disability, manage emotions, and change habits to keep the condition under control. Self-care technologies have the potential to support self-care and mediate the relationship between patients (and caregivers) and the condition. However, these technologies often disregard the complexity of the settings in which they are used and fail to become integrated in everyday life. In this workshop we will discuss how to design self-care technologies that are in harmony with peoples everyday life. Therefore, we invite designers, researchers and practitioners to participate in a full-day workshop in which we will reflect on each others work, and do a design exercise with patients and caregivers.

PeaceKeeper: Augmenting the Awareness and Communication of Noise Pollution in Student Dormitories

Noise pollution can be very problematic especially in shared-living facilities such as student dormitories. After conducting interviews with nine students, we found that students are usually not aware of the level of noise pollution they are producing as part of their everyday activities. To address this challenge, we explore how to augment the awareness and communication of environmental noise among dorm residents through an ambient awareness system: PeaceKeeper. We describe the initial design, implementation and concept validation of PeaceKeeper with two students living in contiguous rooms at the same dormitory. Based on our initial findings, we highlight how ambient awareness systems can provide opportunities to make students aware of their own level of noise to avoid disturbing their neighbours.