Translating Viewpoints on Health Management into Actionable Practices

Background: I joined this project after the phase of understanding users was almost completed. I was tasked to design and implement prototypes to tackle the user challenges identified by a senior PhD student, Liz Kaziunas. Under the mentorship of Dr. Mark Ackerman, I went through several iterations of design and development, including low-fi paper sketches, an Android app as the proof of concept, and a web application as the final product. I led a preliminary study to gather feedback about our design.

This was an interesting and equally challenging project where I experienced vividly the culture differences between Taiwan and the U.S., specifically in terms of health management attitudes toward different approaches. While Chinese medicine and Western medicine were practiced and appreciated by many people in Taiwan, Western medicine was rather dominant for my U.S. participants. I have received some relatively strong opinions from U.S. participants, which showed that further exploration was needed.

My role(s): Researcher, Designer, Developer

Collaborator(s): Dr. Liz Kaziunas, Shuang Liu, Dr. Mark S. Ackerman

Method(s):

PrototypingUsability TestingSemi-structured Interview

Skill(s):

JavascriptCSSHTMLAngularIllustrator

Motivation: Following health professionals' instructions to manage a chronic condition (i.e, diabetes), such as "eating healthy food" and "doing more exercise" could be challenging. Patients might need resources to figure out how to realistically implement such instructions in their community with its unique environment. For instance, there might be no grocery store in the vicinity that provides healthy food options.

Problem Solving: Based on our prior study that recognized the need for translation to convert high-level instructions into realistic and localized strategies (e.g., finding a commute option to a grocery store that offers healthy food options), I designed and evaluted a video-based tool that showcases how other patients with a similar condition develop their viewpoints and approaches to manage chronic conditions.

Prior Research Finings
Lo-Fi
Hi-Fi
Usability Testing
6 participants
Re-design

Outcomes:

Preliminary user study with 6 participants, who were patients or had a patient in the family, showed

Seeing different viewpoints is valuable: participants valued seeing different viewpoints and approaches to managing diabetes.
Facilitate understanding family's viewpoints: the application helped participants to better understand the viewpoints held by their family members and their approaches to managing diabetes.
Prior experience might dominate: experience, particularly a negative one, could strongly influence how a participant perceives specific viewpoints (e.g., Chinese medicine).

The outcomes of this project include a scholarly publication (link) and a mobile web prototype that allows patients to explore curated Youtube videos where patients and clinicians with different viewpoints share their practices of managing diabetes.

Summary:

Date: 2014 ~ 2016

FIT is an application that shows different viewpoints on how to deal with diabetes. FIT shows curated categories of videos where people discuss their journey and approaches to diabetes. The goal is to help patients to understand how people with different viewpoints think about diabetes differently, the approaches they take, and how these approaches align with their viewpoints so that patients can understand how different information they receive from different sources (e.g., a clinician and an uncle with diabetes).

Research & Design Strategy

Apply Iterative Design Process to Improve a Prorotype based on Prior Work

Managing health with chronic condition(s) presents challenges for individuals who have to manage various aspects of their lives according to the conditions and how their body reacts. This continuous process is likely to involve interaction with family members, neighbors, community health workers, and health professionals, who contribute their knowledge and viewpoints to help the individuals navigate through all the challenges. While having various sources of support from the social network seems beneficial, individuals with chronic conditions also have to make sense of the different and sometimes contradicting pieces of knowledge from people with different viewpoints.

Based on previous work, we come to understand that these different viewpoints are the building blocks of how individuals learn to manage lives. With this understanding, we apply iterative design to explore how we could design a video-based mobile platform for people to easily present and understand various viewpoints for managing chronic conditions such as Diabetes.

Sketch

Version 1: Multiple Viewpoints

Version 1: Highlighting Diverse Viewpoints and Fusion of Approaches on Diabetes Management

A high-fidelity prototype of FIT implements the initial design. It shows a list of viewpoints on dealing with diabetes and categories that combine more than one viewpoints (the in-between viewpoints).

Under the self-management (western medicine) viewpoint, FIT shows a cureated list of videos where people explain their viewpoints and the approaches they take to actively manage diabetes.

Next Version: Connecting High-Level Instructions with Actionable Practices to Stimulate Action

Next Version: Connecting High-Level Instructions with Actionable Practices to Facilitate Action

A concept illustration that shows how the design can guide users to gradually explore different actionable options and where to find them (e.g., community resources).

Publications

Kaziunas, Elizabeth, Pei-Yao Hung, Mark S. Ackerman (2014). FIT2: Information Translations for Health Practices. The 2nd International Workshop on Collaboration and Coordination in the Context of Informal Care (CCCiC) in the ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork (GROUP), November 9, Sanibel Island, USA. [BibTex]