How we recruited and selected our participants
Participant Recruited
We find our participants through family members and previous interview participants.
They either take long-term care of elder in the family diagnosed with dementia or other major diseases.
Key findings and proposed improvement
Introduction
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System goal
Target users
Help family caregivers easily keep track of the elders’ instant status, including emotion, physiological measurements and safety by connecting the application, smart clothes and smart locks. Also, to build better interaction between caregivers and the elders.
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Expected key tasks
Complete the registration, visit home page to check information and unlock i-Guard.
Goal
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Testing Procedure
Caregivers can use the central panel to keep track of elderly's emotion, safety, physiological status and take actions accordingly.
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Know elderly's every action, for example sitting, standing, lying or even if they fell.
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Keep track of elderly's health conditions by the measurements, notifications and weekly reports.
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Smoothing elderly's emotion by playing music.
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Check elderly's instant location and on/off status of the smart locks.
Caregivers can harmoniously stimulate elderly's movement by setting the music function connecting the central panel and i-Wear.
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Play music when elderly moves in a certain way
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Play music according to fixed actions
Task Walkthrough
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# One
Complete the registration process. Enter homepage and unlock i-Guard.
Expected outcome
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# Two
2.1 Check basic information
2.2 Setup emotion music
2.3 Turn on the notification of fall
Goal
Expected outcome
Find the basic information page from settings
Find the music interaction settings and setup a song for emotion care
Find the abnormal notification settings and turn on the notification of fall
Get to the basic information setting page
Song for emotion care set
Notification of fall turned on
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# Three
Check full content of the latest notification
Goal
Expected outcome
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# Four
Check full content of the latest report
Goal
Expected outcome
How we interviewed?
Introduction
Task 1 instructions
Task 2 instructions
Task 3 instructions
Task 4 instructions
General Questions
Test Settings
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Place
In the participant’s (caregiver’s) home.
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Place
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Equipment
Prototype of i-Care, including i-Wear and the central penal.
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Recording
oCAM screen record, side video record.
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Problem
There are dangers in the elderly’s every action, so users are eager to keep track of their instant motions. Also, users are interested in the elderly’s daily amount of physical activity.
Solution
We add instant motion information and daily amount of physical activity to the first home page. The content includes daily accumulated steps and shows 4 kinds of motions: sitting, standing, lying and notification of falling.
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Problem
Some users consider bi-weekly report too long to gain effective information. Also, it would be better to show the standard interval of the physiological measurements.
Solution
We changed it into weekly reports and add on standard intervals according to the elderly’s customized health status .
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Problem
At the home page, some users couldn’t catch on the meaning of the face icon and physiological values directly. For example, unable to judge whether the values are normal.
Solution
We add explanations below the face icon and an indicator(green/red) to the right side of the physiological values. The indicator will turn from green to red when abnormal values are measured.
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Problem
Users prefer a more concise notification/report content to read conveniently.
Solution
We show only abnormal incidents in notifications, and contain advices in weekly reports as newbies might need them.
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Problem
One of our participant suggests these health measurements of the elder be synchronized with the hospital, so they can track the changes and quickly provide medical support when needed.
Solution
We chose to synchronize weekly reports with hospitals, and let the caregivers choose which hospital to send in the basic information settings.
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Problem
Unsuitable font size and color lead to misunderstanding and mistakes during operation.
Solution
Change font size and color, also refine and simplify the contents.
Separate the the home page into two pages: One for instant physiological information and the other for location.
At home page, some users wrongly assumed a connection between the instant physiological measurements and the location information.
Solution
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Problem
Welcome to participate in our research. We are part of the NCTU User-Centered Interaction Design course. Based on the many difficulties and pressures experienced by family caregivers caring for elderly with dementia, we hope to provide a design solution which enables them to easier keep track of the instant physiological, emotional, and security status of elderly, and build a better caring relationship. In the following session, I will briefly introduce you to our design, and invite you to perform a few tasks. These tasks are used to test our system, not to test you, if there is any problem, then it’s our responsibility to do a better place, so please feel free to let us know all the difficulties and confusions you encounter. During the tasks, I would like you to think out loud, which means to tell us all your thoughts (e.g. what you are looking for, what you want to do). If you can’t find a way to accomplish a task, please let me know. And let me know also when you think you've completed one.
Any problems before we start?
Note that we will record a screen video and side video for research use only.
Imagine you take care of (the person you're now taking care of / An elderly with dementia, whose comprehension and communication skills have largely declined, and needs full assistance on daily self-care ). This is your first time using this system, please sign up and find a way to unlock i-Guard: the smart lock in your house.
2.1 Assume you want to check the background information of the elderly you’ve provided to the system. What would you do?
2.2 Imagine you know that the elderly favors a specific song, and you want the system to play that song next time when the elder is in a bad mood. Find a way to set it up beforehand in our system.
2.3 Imagine a recent decline on the elderly’s body strength. You are concerned that she might accidentally fall without your notice when you’re at work. Find a way to be informed whenever the elderly fell through our system.
Imagine you noticed receiving a notification sent by the system but missed out the content. Find a way to go back and check the detail of this latest notification you’ve received on our system.
According to the interface and functions, we got the feedbacks below:
1. Sign-up Page
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When I fill in the information of other diseases of the elderly, I would expect there to be options of “none” and “others”.
2. Home
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I'm not sure about the meaning of the face icon (emotion) on home page.
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I can’t easily perceive the direction and position of the floor plan.
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I suppose that the physiological information section has some relations with the floor plan.
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I’m also curious about the elderly’s daily physical activity and instant status of motion.
3. Report
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I just need the concise information of precisely what the problem is.
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Receiving report once in two weeks is too slow to gain effective information. Also, showing the standard intervals of the physiological measurements would be better.
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Should not only provide advice, but also append hyperlinks related that the caregiver might need.
4. Notification
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I also want to know whether I should change the diaper or deal with bed-wetting.
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Notify me of the elderly’s every motion, it could be dangerous even just when they stand up and walk.
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Just show the key message: what is the problem
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I suppose that i-Wear itself can actively help reduce blood sugar and blood pressure.
5. Setting
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Playing different music or sound effects is interesting.
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“Random” could be one of the playing options.
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There could be suggestions about which music is effective for comforting certain negative emotion.
Test - data collection and analysis
Assume you want to show the doctor the abnormal change of the elder’s blood pressure according to our bi-weekly report. Find a way to open the file and show the trend chart in our system.
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(If observed error) How and why a particular error happened?
(If observed hesitation) Why it took you longer at a particular process? What occurred to your mind? -
Did you find anything difficult or confusing about this task? What can we change to make this easier for you?
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Generally, How would you rate this system?
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Would you like to purchase it?
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If you have a friend who takes care of an elder with dementia, would you recommend him/her this system? Why or Why not?
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Do you have any other suggestions or expectations for this system?
