Everyday Life Approach for Smart Health: A People-Centered Design Process for Co-Creating Self-Tracking Systems
Xue Wu, Han‐Teng Liao · 2018
The adoption and sustained use of self-tracking devices, including wearable and assistive technologies, are critical for the development of smart health systems. However, individual users' psychological, aesthetic and social preferences are often overlooked when designing devices and systems. By expanding and applying Møller & Kettleys' maker-wearer-viewer model more generally to smart health systems, this paper proposes co-creating design processes that not only focus on the role of people (makers, wearers, and viewers) but also allow for the creative meaning-making and caring processes among them. The paper also illustrates the ways in which co-created avatars have advantages over the pre-designed dashboards in presenting the well-being status of an individual. In contrast to the technology-centered clinical approach, a people-centered everyday life approach must be incorporated in the designed process. The implications of such design processes for the Internet of People were summarized, including the three principles of people-centered design that take the everyday life approach for designing and studying smart health, which contrasts with medicalized and clinical approach. The paper concludes with the reasons why such a people-centered everyday life approach can complement the current clinical approach in weaving the web of caring (self-care and care for others) by turning both subjective data and creative efforts into meaningful presentation of individual well-being that ultimately should lead to more adoption and sustained use of smart health systems.