Despite its current relevance, there have been few attempts in Human–Computer Interaction to theorize and explore what it implies to design for movement in specific physical places. This paper explores how site-specificity can guide the design of playful public interactive installations. Based on a research in and through design approach, we present a retrospective analysis of a project in which our goal was to design an installation that encouraged playful social physical activity among students at a specific university campus site. The analysis provides insights into the design process and how the resulting installation spurred playful social gameplay. We found that the kinesthetic creativity of the members of the design team was stimulated by enacting future use together through site-specific bodystorming. The evaluation made us aware of the importance of doing large portions of the design in-situ when transforming anonymous spaces into distinctive places for playful social interaction.

The democratic and emancipatory principles underpinning Participatory Design (PD) set PD methodology apart from other user-oriented design methodologies associated with Human-Computer Interaction. In turning PD principles into practice, PD facilitators play a vital role. However, at present, there is a lack of understanding regarding skills relevant to enacting the role. To address this issue, we present the results from an interview study involving fourteen respondents with considerable PD facilitation experience. The analysis of the interviews uncovered six facilitation skills of perceived relevance: openness, patience, empathy, attentiveness, responsiveness, and adaptiveness. The significance of each skill, as expressed by respondents, is accounted for. We further discuss the composition of skills in the derived skill set, possible implications of missing skills, and how the findings complement relevant existing work. Drawing on the findings, the paper offers an empirically based qualitative understanding of what constitutes skillful PD facilitation.

User involvement is widely recognized as best practice in the development of information technology (IT) systems. In large-scale IT projects, the involvement of users and other stakeholder groups is typically in the form of representatives, as opposed to the direct (in-person) participation characteristic for smaller projects. The potential new sharing of power that representative participation entails vis-à-vis direct stakeholder involvement, and the implications of such a shift, are an important discussion in the context of participatory design. This paper extends and adds to previous work on this subject. Drawing on stakeholder interviews conducted as part of a case study of an electronic health record implementation project in Norway, this paper seeks to describe and analyze problems that can arise with representative participation in a large-scale project. Our focus is on an observed decline of interaction between health professionals participating actively in the project and their advisory units consisting of colleagues without a formal project role. The paper describes how the project's structural arrangements might explain this decline. The paper also describes how the participating health professionals' involvement of the advisory units at regular intervals early in the project (broad involvement) was replaced by more ad hoc and competence-oriented approaches (narrow involvement). We further use the organizational structure of democracies as the basis for two analogies, (I) participants-as-political-representatives and (II) participants-as-technocrats. The observed decline in interaction between the participating health professionals and their advisory units can be seen as a transition in role from user representative to technocrat. Generalizing from the case, we suggest that (1) a project's structure strongly affects the possibilities of participating users to consult other users (e.g., non-participating colleagues) about issues concerning the design solution, (2) a project's structure conditions the role of participating users and who, or what, they represent, and (3) representative participation requires rethinking a project's structure.

Participatory design facilitators have a significant impact on participatory activities, processes, and outcomes. However, the facilitator role has not yet been thoroughly debated in existing design discourse, and support for role-related reflections is limited. As the first steps towards an enriched collective understanding of this specific role and its realization, we interviewed 14 respondents with an academic background in participatory design and extensive facilitation experience. Based on a content analysis of the interviews, we identified six facets of the role: (1) trust builder, (2) enabler, (3) inquirer, (4) direction setter, (5) value provider, and (6) users’ advocate. Each facet is presented as consisting of the respondents’ perceived associated responsibilities and corresponding strategies. Our results paint a complex picture of participatory design facilitation. We propose the multi-faceted understanding of the facilitator role emerging from this work as a basis for problematized reflection on the role and its realization.

Abstract This paper provides a systematic review of research articles published between 2010 and mid-2018 that have offered design guidelines for full-body interactive games for recreational purposes and physical exercise. From an initial 3562 retrieved database references, 22 articles were found to meet our predefined criteria and were included in the final review. The review of 22 articles resulted in the extraction of 107 design guidelines, which were grouped in 12 different categories: movement elicitation, mapping of movement, explicit movement guidance, player representation and game world, attention, feedback on player performance, player agency and customization, exertion, safety, universal design and social aspects. While the current body of guidelines was found to cover multiple aspects pertaining to the design of full-body interactive games, the conducted review also revealed a number of overarching concerns regarding the present state. Specifically, these concerns relate to (i) the hedonic–utilitarian divide in movement-related design guidelines of relevant literature, (ii) the lack of common structure for specifying guidelines, (iii) the lack of systematic development of guidelines, (iv) the issues related to the validity of the existing guidelines and (v) the limited focus on tangible interfaces in the present state of the art. In conclusion, the current review paints a somewhat questionable picture of the present state of the corpus of design guidelines for full-body games, with relatively large differences in the quality of the guidelines proposed in the individual articles and a lack of reference to already existing guidelines. In the longer run, these quality issues risk watering out the original meaning of the term design guideline and reducing the potential value design guidelines can offer in development of full-body interactive games.

This paper addresses how facilitation can implicate what, whose and how perspectives and values become embedded in the results from participatory design activities. Inspired by Donald Schön's reflection-on-action theory, an analysis of our facilitator performances in three design activities involving health care stakeholder groups with asymmetric relations has been performed. The analysis highlights the often subtle and unforeseen ways by which facilitator actions influence who "has a say". The results emphasize how continuous introspective analyses and reflections may improve the facilitator's attentiveness to actions that may inadvertently impede the disfavored party. In the long-term, neglect may threaten the integrity of participatory design as a democratic and empowering design approach. The shift towards a practice-perspective on facilitation goes beyond the efforts of the individual practitioner. The cultivation of the reflective facilitator, a concern of relevance for the Human?Computer Interaction and Participatory Design community as a whole, is considered.

This article explores care stakeholders’ perspectives on how interactive technology can help form socially active environments in residential care settings. Based on participatory workshops, involving representatives from multiple stakeholder groups, the authors identify a set of considerations relevant for design of social inclusion technology for care settings. The design considerations relate to the following topics: users, places, themes, value, and role. The authors also present three mock-ups emanating from the workshops, representing the participants’ visions as to how technology can contribute to social interaction by accommodating considerations related to the above topics. The results from this study highlight the importance of social inclusion technology being firmly anchored in the local and collaboratively produced care environment. In particular, their findings illustrate how the local—i.e., the wider social context in which the care residents live, and in which activities and things gain social meaning and value—can offer a rich design space and valuable source of inspiration for social inclusion technology. Potential negative implications of social inclusion technology are also briefly discussed.The main contribution of this article is an increased understanding of the intimate relationship between designs for social inclusion and the wider social context in which care residents live.

Patient-centered care encourages active involvement of patients in their own treatment and a collaborative perspective on the relationship between patient and practitioner. However, to achieve constructive patient–practitioner collaboration in medical consultations the partakers need to successfully interact across conceptual boundaries that can impede intersubjectivity, i.e., the construction of shared meanings and understandings in communicative activities. We present a synthesis of a user-centered approach to designing interactive technology supporting collaboration in face-to-face consultations related to audiological (hearing) rehabilitation. Specifically, we focus on the case of hearing aid tuning, and on the design and utility assessment of a prototype sound environment simulator intended to support the process by helping the patient and the practitioner build a joint understanding of the individual patient’s hearing problem and perceived effects of treatment actions. We describe an empirical and qualitative investigation that calls specific attention to the multi-dimensional boundaries involved in collocated patient–practitioner interactions, and to the explorative and situated nature of the consultation as a collaborative problem-solving process. Here, various micro-practices play a key role in gradually forming a better understanding of the problem at hand and in identifying appropriate treatment steps. Our findings suggest that patient–practitioner collaboration can benefit from interactive technology, which is sufficiently flexible or open-ended in terms of use to accommodate, or be appropriated, to the immediate needs of the situation. We argue that designing technology with the aim of enhancing existing practices of intersubjectivity, rather than doing away with them, improves the chances of enriching collocated patient–practitioner interaction and reduces risk of obstructing it. The main research contribution is an increased understanding of the medical consultation as an instance of collocated collaborative work and learning, and the challenges and opportunities that lie in co-designing interactive solutions that can help the patient take an active and contributing part in the situation.

This paper explores how interactive technology can help overcome barriers to active patient participation in audiological consultations involving hearing aid tuning. We describe the design and evaluation of a prototype sound simulator intended to trigger reflection in patients regarding their hearing experiences, and help guide the tuning process. The prototype was tested in twelve consultations. Our findings suggest that it helped facilitate patient participation during the tuning process by: (1) encouraging an iterative, patient-driven approach; (2) stimulating context-specific feedback and follow-up questions; (3) helping patients make sense of medical information and treatment actions; (4) offering patient control over the process pace and what situations to optimize for; and (5) promoting reflections on daily hearing aid use. Post-consultation interviews revealed that the prototype was perceived useful in several ways. Our results highlight the benefit of flexible designs that can be appropriated to fit the spontaneous needs of patients and audiologists

This paper provides an empirical understanding of concerns that the application of a sensor-enhanced 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.

This paper presents an attempt to understand how safe walking technology can be designed to fit the needs of people with dementia. Taking inspiration from modern dementia care philosophy, and its emphasis on the individual with dementia, we have performed in-depth investigations of three persons' experiences of living with early-stage dementia. From interviews and co-design workshops with them and their family caregivers, we identified several factors that influence people with dementia's attitudes toward safe walking technology, and how they want the technology to assist them. Relevant factors include: The desire for control and self-management, the subjective experiences of symptoms, personal routines and skills, empathy for care-givers, and the local environment in which they live. Based on these findings, we argue there is a need to reconsider "surveillance" as a concept on which to base design of safe walking technology. We also discuss implications for design ethics.

Designing for the sickest and frailest cancer patients requires an even higher level of user involvement than traditional software development. This paper reports on design and evaluation of a pain assessment tool, where changes of the deployment platform from paper, via laptop to iPad affect the interaction with the tool. We also show how changes of medium affect the readability of the output for health care workers. We found that using the iPad platform and an iterative user centered development process produced the most suitable pain assessment tool for this patient group.

We investigate a conventional GPS tracking system employed in professional dementia care in search of value biases that contradict central care values. The investigation follows the formal steps of the value-sensitive design approach. Four biases are identified. These are related to: augmentation, privacy, self-esteem, and trust and accountability. Drawing on data gathered through a field experiment and related focus group meetings, professional stakeholders' responses and attitudes towards these biases are accounted for. The main lessons learned form our investigation are as follows: Firstly, this study highlights the situation that stakeholders' concerns about sensor-based assistive technology in dementia care often relate to specific value-laden design aspects or features. Secondly, we consider the identified biases central issues that need to be taken into account in ethical evaluations of the uptake and adoption of sensor-based technologies in dementia care. For designers of assistive technologies the biases identified represent areas for improvements. Thirdly, the study strengthens the argument that ethics and human values need to be paid explicit attention as part of human-centered design processes that target the care sector.

This paper investigates the attitudes of professional stakeholders involved in dementia care to GPS tracking of dementia patients. Data were gathered via focus groups that met in the context of a field experiment in which patients' spatial activities were tracked using GPS. Four main topics emerged: (1) different perspectives on the purpose of the measure; (2) privacy concerns and underlying premises for employing GPS technology in professional care, including; (3) knowledge about patients; and (4) routines for use.

Controlled laboratory-based usability assessments of mobile information and communications technologies (ICT) for hospitals have been conducted. As part of these assessments, clinicians have acted out mobile work scenarios and used the systems to solve related tasks. The evaluations show that relevant usability issues go beyond those of graphical user interfaces. Many of these usability issues only show up when the real-world context of use is replicated in the laboratory to a high degree of fidelity. The complexity of the context of use for mobile ICT in hospitals has motivated us to explore training simulation fidelity theories. Based on a review of the training simulation literature, a set of fidelity dimensions through which training simulations are often adjusted to meet specific goals are identified. It is argued that the same mechanisms can be used in usability assessments of mobile ICT for hospitals. Our argument is substantiated by using the identified set of fidelity dimensions in a retrospective analysis of two usability assessments. The analysis explains how the configuration of fidelity dimensions, each reflecting various degrees of realism vis-à-vis the actual performance context, contributed to the identification of relevant usability issues.