Anxiety and autism: towards personalized digital health

Will Simm, Maria Angela Ferrario, Adrian Gradinar, Marcia Tavares Smith, Stephen Forshaw, Ian Smith, Jon Whittle

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

76 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For many people living with conditions such as autism, anxiety manifests so powerfully it has a big impact on quality of life. By investigating the suitability of truly customizable wearable health devices we build on prior research that found each experience of anxiety in people with autism is unique, so 'one-suits all' solutions are not suitable. In addition, users desire agency and control in all aspects of the system. The participative approach we take is to iteratively co-develop prototypes with end users. Here we describe a case study of the co-development of one prototype, a digital stretch wristband that records interaction for later reflection called Snap. Snap has been designed to sit within a platform that allows the distributed and sustainable design, manufacture and data analysis of customizable digital health technologies. We contribute to HCI with (1) lessons learned from a DIY co-development process that follows the principles of modularity, participation and iteration and (2) the potential impact of technology in self-management of anxiety and the broader design implications of addressing unique anxiety experiences.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - The 34th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
EditorsCliff Lampe
Place of PublicationNew York NY USA
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages1270-1281
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781450333627
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
EventInternational Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2016 - San Jose, United States of America
Duration: 7 May 201612 May 2016
Conference number: 34th
https://chi2016.acm.org/wp/ (Website)
https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/2851581 (Proceedings)

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2016
Abbreviated titleCHI 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States of America
CitySan Jose
Period7/05/1612/05/16
Other
Internet address

Keywords

  • Anxiety
  • Autism
  • Mental health
  • Personal informatics

Cite this