Participatory design for sensitive interface parameters: contributions of traumatic brain injury patients to their prosthetic software

Interface design is impofiant in the design of prosthetic software for brain injury patients. Personal productivity modules demonstrated their ability to help patients when other rehabilitation methods had failed. However, the software was typically very sensitive to what are considered relatively minor design parameters. Patients were able to guide designers and their therapists in constructing highly effective interfaces. In some instances, the dimension which the patient was optimizing was not readily apparent, and consequently could not be achieved by other means. The research and poster has relevance the disabilities, Interface design plays a major role in the effectiveness of a broader area of learning new intervention for enduring cognitive deficits from brain injury. Highly customized personal productivity modules have shown an ability to assist brain injury patients in restoring performance of everyday activities when other forms of rehabilitation have failed. This poster will show examples of interface features and specifications which were designed by several brain injury patients and which optimized some dimension which was significant to them. The research objective of this NIH-funded study was to deliver a system to each subject that will satisfy critical needs and would require only minutes of training. This study adapted software design methods for personal productivity tools. The design methods include participatory design, having the brain injury survivor play a key role in the initial design, and on-going redesign of the prosthetic software. The iterative nature of our approach required the delivery of multiple systems to ensure the success of the prosthesis. Over the course of 4 months 23 versions of the different systems were delivered to patients: to gradually increase functional enhancements, to improve interface, and to remove errors. The final applications delivered were: Daily Schedule, Daily To Do List, Priority List, Rolodex, Wordl Processor, Case Tracking, and Exterml Activity Calls. The performance of the patient-computer system is a function of user characttxistics, activity characteristics, and designed computing characteristics. When designing for the general population, user characteristics are treated as robust, overcoming design limitations in computing system as well as misunderstandings of the activity characteristics. However, our work with brain injury patients has shown that patient-system performance is extremely sensitive to what are considered relatively minor design parameters; Furthermore, that the brain injury survivor needs to be viewed as a relatively sensitive component, while the computer system design needs to be the most flexible. A critical problem is collecting data sufficient to develop a user requirement. In pilot studies, medical and clinical data were considered to be the most logical source of design parameters. Several clinical methods were available as inputs to design. Data which was useful in determining a diagnosis was Permission to copy without fee all or part of th! s material is Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for andlor spec! fm permkmon. dwect commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the CH194 Companion-4/94 Boston, Massachusetts USA mle of the publication and Its date appear, and notice IS given e 1994 ACM 0-89791-651-4/94/01 15. $3.50 that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing