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Ontwerpen van een applicatie voor de activiteiten binnen een social community van COPD-patienten

Wijsman, Monique (2013) Ontwerpen van een applicatie voor de activiteiten binnen een social community van COPD-patienten.

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Abstract:The Bachelor assignment described in this paper is assigned by Roessingh Research and Development (RRD). During the assignment an activity sensor application is redesigned. For some patients with physical difficulties, it is important to stay active. The current application monitors and visualizes movement. In a graphic this measured movement of a patient and the movement that would be ideal for this patient are shown. Helped with this graphic a user is able to compare his/her activity level with the reference line. Besides that, the application provides the user of advices to encourage the patient to be more active or inform the patient it would be better to take a short rest. The main goal of the newly designed application is to motivate COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients by using the application within a social community. COPD is a progressive disease which makes breathing difficult. The disease most often occurs in people of 50 years and older. A right level of movement is very important for people with this disease. A right level means not too less, but also not too much. Too less movement leads to deconditioning, whereas too much movement can lead in COPD patients to an exacerbation (sudden increase of symptoms). This application has to motivate patients to have the right level of activity for a longer time than the previous application. In this paper, the following question will be answered: What should the functionalities and the representation of an application in a social community be, that has to motivate COPD patients to have a right activity level for a longer period of time? Multiple investigations are carried out find an answer to the main question. First, the interests of people aged 50 and older, have been researched. It was found they like traveling, reading and games. Besides that, there it was found that the application has to be reliable, which means predictable and consistent. Furthermore, results of existing applications for movement sensors investigations are looked up. These researches describe what the target group likes en doesn’t like about these of applications. A master student already created a thesis for RRD which describes group motivation in telemedicine by patients with a chronic disease. It appeared they would appreciate recognition, informative support and instrumental support. The different ways of motivating people to be active are described by researching principles of sport psychology. It is most important for COPD patients to use the self-referenced theory. For COPD patients it is very important to manage their disease themselves. Guidelines for interfaces, interactive products and graphic style provide aspects for the program of requirements and the program of wishes. After completing these analyses a brainstorm is organized. Several ideas focused on three types of applications are generated. These types are: applications focused on caring and anthropomorphism, applications focused on pastime and applications focused on successes. Based on these types of applications, three concepts of motivating applications are generated. Several sketches of each concept are made. These sketches are presented to seven practitioners and ten COPD-patients. The opinions of the COPD-patients can be divided in two groups. One group of five COPD-patients has no need of an application with more functionalities than the current application has. The other group has a strong preference for the application in which a user has to take care of a dog, by staying at the right level of activity. The concept with the dog is elaborated to a model. For this model a diagram with all functionalities is created. Besides that, an interactive interface is built with Microsoft Office PowerPoint. This interactive interface is tested in a usability test. Several improvements are enforced, which led to the final model. In the final model of the application, the user first has to pick a type of dog. This is the dog a user has to take care of by having the right amount of activity. A filling bar shows the activity of the user per day. In a virtual garden, all dogs of users in the social community are together. The healthier the dog looks, the better the movements of his owner that day were. The social community of a COPD-patient exists of the other COPD-patients with whom he/she was in rehabilitation and every other person who is using the application and the users has added. On a map, all users can be seen and routes can be generated. Bachelor Eindopdracht Industrieel ontwerpen - Monique Wijsman ix Within the menu ‘Chat’ a user is able to chat with people from his/her social community. This is possible in a group or individually. The statistics of the activity of a user and the statistics of the activity of members of the social community can be seen in the menu ‘Statistieken’. There is a large risk of COPD-patients going across their limits with the influence of social pressure. When these patients go across their limits, this will have a negative effect to their revalidation. For this reason, all users have their own activity level target. The user is able to adjust the visibility of his/her own level of activity and statistics for the other users in the social community. In this manner, the expectation is that the social pressure will not be too high. Within the statistics menu, a patient is able to add explanatory comments to specific moments of (in)activity. In this way, patients can self-reference themselves. If a user needs awards for extra motivation to achieve a good activity level, there is an option in the application to earn different colors of collars. The usability test made clear that the overall application is user-friendly. Aspects that weren’t user-friendly were improved after the usability test. This led to an application that is expected to be entirely user-friendly. By promoting this newly designed application to the target group that showed interest in a more extensive application and keep promoting the older individual application to patients who did not have interest in the newly designed application, it is expected that the whole target group can be provided with application after their rehabilitation program in the Roessingh Revalidatiecentrum.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:20 art studies
Programme:Industrial Design BSc (56955)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63611
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