Thomas Vilarinho

Stakeholder Attitudes Toward and Values Embedded in a Sensor-Enhanced Personal Emergency Response System

This paper provides an empirical understanding of concerns that the application of a sensorenhanced medical alert system, or personal emergency response (PER) system, raises from the perspective of care receivers (users) and care providers. Data were gathered in the context of a field trial of a PER system supporting both user-initiated alerts and automatic fall detection alerts. The system was tested at two residential care facilities for 3 weeks. Drawing on data primarily from post-trial group and pair interviews, we describe and compare care receivers’ and providers’ views on the following emerging concerns: (i) form factor and ergonomics, (ii) system feedback and user control and (iii) sensor precision and trust. Based on feedback from stakeholder groups, we discuss potential value biases, or discriminating factors, embedded in the evaluated PER system. We also discuss the implications of our findings for a value-driven design agenda for future PER systems.

A Combined Smartphone and Smartwatch Fall Detection System

Falls are behind many elderly hospitalizations and can lead to injuries that greatly debilitate old patients. Much of the deployed fall detection systems rely on the user wearing a personal emergency response device, being conscious and at home. The limitations of the existing systems regarding usability and efficiency have yield an overarching research question on whether systems based on new and advanced consumer mobile devices can be used as ubiquitous automatic fall detectors for seniors. This paper specifically looks into the accuracy of a fall detection system based on an off-the-shelf smartwatch and smartphone. We have implemented a system which combines threshold based and pattern recognition techniques in both devices, with the intent of having the watch to contribute to the specificity of the fall detection strategy. We tested the accuracy of the system through a series of simulated falls and activities of daily living, resulting on the correct identification of 63% of the falls and 78% of the activities and outperforming two other baseline fall detection applications (iFall and Fade). The sensors and algorithm on the watch were able to provide a marginal contribution to the systems accuracy. Indications from the tests suggest that it should be possible to improve the system accuracy by adjusting the used thresholds and fuzzyfying them. Moreover, it is expected that the open source nature of this work and its results boost such threshold tuning and serve as a better basis for researchers to benchmark their work.

End user centred interactive software architecture and design: the creation of communities for a smart energy use

CoSSMic (Collaborating Smart Solar powered Micro-grids) is an EU funded project. It aims to develop both hardware and software which will include an ICT system for smart management and control of generated/consumed solar energy in neighbourhood communities. The creation process of energy monitoring and controlling of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) is described here. User Centred Design Workshops and face to face interviews were conducted with targeted neighbourhood communities in the Province of Caserta, Italy and the City of Konstanz, Germany. These workshops initiated the first part of the creation process and resulted in paper prototypes leading to functional and partially interactive hardware and software implementations. Thus linking the user to the technical development of the system. Furthermore a dedicated focus was set on the formation and sustainability of smart energy deploying user communities.

From Episodes to Continuity of Care: a Study of a Call Center for Supporting Independent Living

Call centers are a central coordination hub for remote health services and telemedicine. Recently, also telecare providers use call centers to support the remote care of seniors living independently. Although we know that the quality of the interaction between caregiver and senior care recipient is important, there is a gap in our knowledge as to how ICT solutions can support this interaction through a call center model. In this paper, we describe a case study of a modern call center designed to provide services for independent living, primarily for seniors. The case study gives us new insight into how service providers envision ICT support for independent living in the future. We discuss our findings from interviews, observations and design workshops in light of relevant literature about independent living and call centers. We conclude with a set of directions for future ICT for call centers to support independent living of seniors. These tools should: 1) support continuity of care instead of episodes of care, 2) support caregiving activities in addition to medical triage activities, 3) support “technical caregiving” i.e. remote use, testing and maintenance of technology at home, and 4) support call center operators in leading ad hoc and emergent coordination in distributed teams.

Designing a Digital Social Innovation Platform: From Case Studies to Concepts

Governments in the western countries are faced with a number of growing social challenges, such as unemployment, migration, ageing population, explosion of chronic disease. Although they offer a wide range of public social services, we cannot assume that the economy will grow at a rate that can fund expanding needs for services risen by these challenges. We have to find new ways to adapt service provision and prevent social exclusion. Social innovations are new approaches to addressing social needs through engaging beneficiaries and supporting actors in the development of solutions. There is great potential in exploiting digital networks for social innovation. Supporting virtual communities and new forms of collaboration, digital networks make it possible to co-create knowledge and solutions at a wide scale. Various digital social innovation platforms have emerged in the recent years. However we observe that these platforms focus on specific areas, such as open democracy, collaborative consumption or environment, rather than providing support for a wide range of social challenges. We propose to develop a digital social innovation platform that facilitates citizens and organisations to collaboratively develop innovative social solutions. From the analysis of the current innovation processes and the expectations of two distinct cases, Cibervoluntarios (CIB) and Experts-In-Teamwork (EiT), we derive an initial set of concepts that serve as a basis for the development of a methodology and platform for social innovation.

Designing an Application Store for the Internet of Things: Requirements and Challenges

Although things in the Internet of Things contain considerable amounts of software, developers of such software have no standardized means of maintaining, improving and sharing this software as they can do, e.g., with applications on a smart phone. This limitation can hamper user-driven innovation. In this paper we evaluate the usefulness of the “app store” metaphor as a means of sharing and deploying Internet of Things software among makers. We did a set of interviews and a questionnaire-based survey with a sample of makers in various maker communities. We used this data to extract requirements for an application store, using the common “app store” metaphor as a starting point. The app store concept was developed as a proof of concept implementation, and evaluated through feasibility evaluation and focus group evaluation methods. Our findings show that although the app store metaphor is familiar and easy to grasp, there are some fundamental challenges when adapting the metaphor: (1) The difficulty of supporting the diversity in the software and hardware vendor market, (2) The tension between context awareness and the need for pre-configuration and pre-packaging, and (3) usability challenges related to the number of devices and apps.

Developing a Social Innovation Methodology in the Web 2.0 Era

The world is facing a growing number of societal challenges such as inequality rise, political upheaval, ageing population, etc. Governments are struggling to keep up to theirs existing service offers, making it difficult for tackling overarching social challenges alone. The active involvement of citizens in partaking social innovations is seen as potential solution to those wider challenges. However, the majority of the population lacks an understanding of social innovation and on how to contribute. In this work, we present a social innovation methodology catering citizens without previous social innovation experience and accessible via an ICT platform. We describe the designing process of the methodology, the core aspects of the resulting methodology and its validation.

Experimenting a Digital Collaborative Platform for Supporting Social Innovation in Multiple Settings

Social Innovation is gaining popularity as an approach to address societal challenges. Governments, charities, NGOS and organizations are taking up the role of facilitating citizens participation into social innovation initiatives. Digital collaborative platforms have a great potential for enabling and supporting the social innovation process as it facilitates knowledge sharing, cooperative work and networking. In this work, we experimented using a digital social innovation platform and associated methodology for supporting citizens to do social innovation in three different pilots settings: an university course, a contest/hackathon and an “in the wild” scenario. We reflect on the participants usage and experience with the platform for understanding its added value and uncovering important considerations for designing and implementing this type of platform. The analysis of the experiments highlights (1) the value of facilitating collaboration with beneficiaries and across different backgrounds, (2) the importance of actively engaging participants on process and (3) the needs of adapting the platform for handling complexities risen from the social innovation process on real settings.

User Needs in the Development of a Health App Ecosystem for Self-Management of Cystic Fibrosis: User-Centered Development Approach

Background Digital self-management in cystic fibrosis (CF) is foreseen as a means toward better understanding of the disease and its treatment and better adherence to the treatment. Mobile apps hold the potential to provide access to information, motivate, and strengthen compliance. However, to deliver high-quality apps, the development should be based on thorough knowledge about user needs. Empirical research on the user-centered development of mobile apps for health care is, however, still limited. Objective The aim of this research is to develop and evaluate an app ecosystem for self-management in CF. It targets not only those directly affected by CF but also parents and health care professionals involved in the treatment. This paper covers the first step of the design process that aims to analyze the context and the user requirements. The primary research question is as follows: what digital support has the potential to usefully support persons with CF and their caregivers in the CF care? To answer this question, we address two preliminary questions: what important factors in everyday life affect the care of persons with CF? and how is the CF care delivered today and what are the limitations of CF care services? Methods The overall research adopts a user-centered design approach in which future users are involved in the development process from the very beginning to ensure that the apps developed best suit the potential users. The research presented in the paper follows an interpretative case study research strategy seeking to understand the concerns and needs of persons with CF and their caregivers. Data were collected through semistructured qualitative interviews involving 74 participants in seven European countries and from internet forums. Results The results of the analysis phase show a strong need for individuality of the digital support, as well as for its adaptability to different contexts. The paper presents the concerns and needs of the participants in the study and extracts a set of relevant features for a self-management app ecosystem. Education, enzyme dosage calculation, nutrition management, treatment organization, health diary, treatment follow-up, practical guidelines for treatment, communication with doctors, and communication with peers are foreseen as useful features. Conclusions The results indicate the readiness for self-management in the CF care even in countries that provide well-functioning health care services for CF care. The large diversity of user requirements identified reflects the crucial role user integration plays in developing apps for a chronic condition such as CF. The need for personalization stemming from the individuality of the patients and the need for communication with health care professionals support the idea of an app ecosystem for the self-management of CF.

Co-designing a mHealth Application for Self-management of Cystic Fibrosis

Self-management has the potential to improve patient care and decrease healthcare costs. It is especially beneficial for patients suffering from chronic diseases that require continuous therapy and follow-up such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Mobile phones have become pervasive and, therefore, are perfectly suited for self-management. However, due to the large amount of time CF patients spend in their treatment, usability and usefulness are critical factors for the adoption of an assistive mobile application (App).