Tobias Sonne

ChillFish: A Respiration Game for Children with ADHD

Breathing exercises can help children with ADHD control their stress level, but it can be hard for a child to sustain attention throughout such an exercise. In this paper, we present ChillFish, a breath-controlled biofeedback game designed in collaboration with ADHD professionals to investigate the possibilities of combining breathing exercises and game design. Based on a pilot study with 16 adults, we found that playing ChillFish had a positive effect, helping the participants to reach a relaxed state similar to the one offered by traditional breathing exercises. Further, we analyze the opportunities and challenges of creating a tangible respiration-based controller and use it as a core game mechanic. Finally, we discuss the challenge of balancing engagement and relaxation in physically controlled games for children with ADHD in order to make a game that can be calming and still sustain their attention.

Designing Real Time Assistive Technologies: A Study of Children with ADHD

Children with mental disorders like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often experience challenges in school as they struggle to maintain their attention. Based on empirical studies conducted in school contexts and together with teachers and ADHD domain professionals, we identified design criteria in relation to three core components (sensing, recognizing, and assisting) for designing real time assistive technologies for children with ADHD. Based on these design criteria, we designed the Child Activity Sensing and Training Tool (CASTT), a real time assistive prototype that captures activities and assists the child in maintaining attention. From a preliminary evaluation of CASTT with 20 children in several schools, we and found that: 1) it is possible to create a wearable sensor system for children with ADHD that monitors physical and physiological activities in real time; and that 2) real time assistive technologies have potential to assist children with ADHD in regaining attention in critical school situations.

Calming Children When Drawing Blood Using Breath-based Biofeedback

Blood sampling is a common and necessary procedure in the treatment and diagnosis of a variety of diseases. However, it often results in painful and stressful experiences for children. Designed together with domain experts, ChillFish is a breath-controlled biofeedback game technology with bespoke airflow sensor that aims to calm children during blood sampling procedures. An experimental pilot study was conducted in which 20 children aged 6-11 were assigned to one of two conditions involving either passive distraction (watching a video) or active distraction using the ChillFish prototype. Medical staff rated ChillFish significantly more useful in facilitating the blood sampling procedure compared to passive distraction. Qualitative feedback from patients, parents, and medical staff identified aspects that impact the acceptance of breath-based active distraction. Our study highlights the potential of non-pharmacological assistive technology tools to reduce fear and pain for children undergoing painful or stressful medical treatment.

Evaluating the ChillFish Biofeedback Game with Children with ADHD

Breathing exercises have been shown to have multiple benefits for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, these children can have issues retaining attention to such an exercise. In this paper we present a study of ChillFish, a respiration game for children with ADHD. Our findings show tendencies that the game works in terms of having a calming effect. However, the study also highlighted issues of evaluating biofeedback games with children with ADHD that are not present when evaluating with adults. This work presents an iteration in the ChillFish development cycle that will hopefully result in a stable system that can assist children with ADHD in their everyday life.

Race By Hearts

In this paper, we explore the qualities of sharing biometric data in real-time between athletes, in order to increase two motivational factors for gym-goers: Enjoyment and social interaction. We present a novel smartphone application, called Race By Hearts, which enables competition based on heart rate data sharing between users in real-time. Through an empirical study conducted in the gym, we show that sharing biometric data in real-time can strengthen social relations between participants, increase motivation, and improve the enjoyment of the fitness activity. Nevertheless, we found that introducing competition based on real-time sharing of biometric data can cause exasperation and discouragement for some athletes. Based on our findings from the study, we discuss how technology can facilitate and modify competition in fitness exercises in general.

An assistive technology design framework for ADHD

In this paper, we present a design framework for ADHD assistive technologies that aims to give researchers grounding in the background research on the condition, to provide a lingua franca, and to highlight potential research directions for HCI researchers within assistive technology. The design framework couples ADHD patient challenge areas to technological opportunities and it provides a set of practical design strategies for developing successful assistive technologies for people with ADHD. The framework is based on empirical studies, ADHD research, and related work on assistive technologies. We map existing assistive technologies and potential new research efforts to the framework concepts. This way we show how it is used to support and advance the research and development of novel assistive technologies for the ADHD domain.

Designing Assistive Technologies for the ADHD Domain

Assistive technologies have proven to support and empower people with a variety of mental diagnoses in performing self-care activities in their everyday lives. However, little research has explored the potentials for assistive technologies for people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In this paper, we identify a set of challenges that children with ADHD typically experience, which provides an empirical foundation for pervasive health researchers to address the ADHD domain. The work is grounded in extensive empirical studies and it is contextualized using literature on ADHD. Based on these studies, we also present lessons learned that are relevant to consider when designing assistive technology to support children with ADHD. Finally, we provide an example (CASTT) of our own work to illustrate how the presented findings can frame research activities and be used to develop novel assistive technology to empower children with ADHD and improve their wellbeing.

Exploring new potentials in preventing unhealthy computer habits

Each day millions of computer users experience pains due to unhealthy computer habits. Research in this field mainly focuses on encouraging users to take breaks and correct their posture. This paper shows that unhealthy computer habits calls for new sensing solutions. Based on a design process including experts in the field of computer-related injuries, The Habit-Aware Mouse prototype was developed. It provides high-accuracy sensing of whether a users fingers are hovering above the mouse. This kind of hovering is known to cause pains in the forearm. The integration of trans-parent sensing in existing products enables medical researchers to gain new insights on unhealthy habits. The Habit-Aware Mouse is a diagnostic sensing tool to get detailed knowledge about the users unhealthy computer habits. Sensing is the first step to enable feedback, preventing injuries from finger hovering.

A Follow-up Study of a Successful Assistive Technology for Children with ADHD and Their Families

Little research on assistive technologies for families of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has investigated the long-term impact, after the assistive technology is returned to the researchers. In this paper, we report the outcomes of a follow-up study, conducted four-weeks after a field study of 13 children with ADHD and their families who used an assistive technology designed to help establish and change family practices. We show that some of the positive effects on parent frustration level and conflict level around morning and bedtime routines that we observed in the first phase of the study, continued even after the study period, when the technology was no longer available. We furthermore present insights into family practices in families of children with ADHD and how these could lead to unexpected challenges and implications related to the adoption, use, and outcome of the assistive technology.

Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals

Digital self-tracking technologies offer many potential benefits over self-tracking with paper notebooks. However, they are often too rigid to support peoples practical and emotional needs in everyday settings. To inform the design of more flexible self-tracking tools, we examine bullet journaling: an analogue and customisable approach for logging and reflecting on everyday life. Analysing a corpus of paper bullet journal photos and related conversations on Instagram, we found that individuals extended and adapted bullet journaling systems to their changing practical and emotional needs through: (1) creating and combining personally meaningful visualisations of different types of trackers, such as habit, mood, and symptom trackers; (2) engaging in mindful reflective thinking through design practices and self-reflective strategies; and (3) posting photos of paper journals online to become part of a self-tracking culture of sharing and learning. We outline two interrelated design directions for flexible and mindful self-tracking: digitally extending analogue self-tracking and supporting digital self-tracking as a mindful design practice.