Understanding and Reducing the User Burdens in Applications for Health and Wellbeing
0The use of interactive technologies to improve health and wellbeing has grown dramatically over the last two decades. However, there are many reasons why people still do not adopt different types of health technologies, including physical, mental, time, emotional, financial, and privacy demands. In my research, I have been seeking to understand and characterize these user burdens and design novel applications that can help to reduce them and improve access to healthcare. In this talk, I will first give an overview of studies seeking to understand the emotional, physical, and privacy burdens of interactive technologies. I will then describe the design and evaluation of three wellness applications my lab has developed in conjunction with health experts in which we have sought to reduce these burdens: 1) ShutEye, a mobile awareness display for promoting healthy sleep behaviors; 2) Lullaby, an at home capture and access system for monitoring the sleep environment; and 3) Baby Steps, an ecosystem of interactive tools for helping parents track developmental progress in young children. Finally, I will discuss future directions in helping to understand and reduce the user burden of health technologies.