Abstract
Designers of enabling technologies need a deep understanding of what patients want and need. But prototypes with working sensors and actuators may be far outside the experience of the vulnerable populations (e.g., older patients) targeted and may prove harmful to them, requiring a more cautious, “step-by-step” design approach. We report on how designers gain feedback from, before older patients, clinicians, using low-fidelity, full-scale prototypes without electronics to anticipate how such patients will interact with full-functioning technologies. Three hypothetical patient-personas with varying degrees of injuries were developed with clinicians. Clinicians then offered feedback on the assistance needed from our assistive robotic furniture by their patients to complete tasks at home to maintain independence. This design step was quick and effective in gaining meaningful feedback from clinicians who can speak for a wide range of patients in anticipation of studying interactions with older patients in a step-by-step process of design.
Keywords
enabling technology; user study; research methods
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.355
Citation
O. Brooks, J., F. Jenkins, C., L. Tanner, S., D. Walker, I., and Evan Green, K. (2024) Step-by-step: Using low-fidelity, physical prototypes of enabling technologies to gain feedback from clinicians, prior to older patients, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.355
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Step-by-step: Using low-fidelity, physical prototypes of enabling technologies to gain feedback from clinicians, prior to older patients
Designers of enabling technologies need a deep understanding of what patients want and need. But prototypes with working sensors and actuators may be far outside the experience of the vulnerable populations (e.g., older patients) targeted and may prove harmful to them, requiring a more cautious, “step-by-step” design approach. We report on how designers gain feedback from, before older patients, clinicians, using low-fidelity, full-scale prototypes without electronics to anticipate how such patients will interact with full-functioning technologies. Three hypothetical patient-personas with varying degrees of injuries were developed with clinicians. Clinicians then offered feedback on the assistance needed from our assistive robotic furniture by their patients to complete tasks at home to maintain independence. This design step was quick and effective in gaining meaningful feedback from clinicians who can speak for a wide range of patients in anticipation of studying interactions with older patients in a step-by-step process of design.