iHelp: User Centric Design I

This deliverable reports the results achieved by the first half of Task 2.4 – “User Centred Design”. The task aims to ensure that the interfaces produced by iHelp are perceived as enjoyable, easy to understand and effective by the different groups of potential users. It also aims to ensure iHelp software development process is aligned with the requirements for medical devices, and that users are motivated to stick with the system for long enough to change their behaviour, bring about long-term health benefits and thus reduce their risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
A major complication in achieving this objective is the AI-based nature of the iHelp software functionality, which creates problems with user comprehension of software actions and trust into AI-derived recommendations. To address this, the deliverable reviews the state of art in health systems personalisation and Artificial Intelligence, including techniques for reach interactions, attracting and retaining attention.
The software developed by iHelp is categorised as medical device Class IIa, which means that the software design process will need to embrace Usability Engineering Principles, and carefully consider the background of target users, and the context in which they will use the system, such as brightness, noise, etc. The background of target users is made explicit through the technique of personas. We are fully aligned with the stipulated focus on usability requirements, using techniques such as wireframing, use case models and descriptions for the user-facing use cases. We create and evaluate the first draft of wireframe models of key interface screens.
This work leads to the first set of user development guidelines, which are split along interfaces specialised for each different persona: a mobile interface for individuals and patients using the system, and desktop interfaces for the model builders, health professionals, policy makers and administrators. The guidelines are based on sound theoretical principles and state-of-practice techniques. The most important are the guidelines regarding the mobile interfaces for individuals/patients using the system to manage their health. These include the following:
Personalisation and interactivity – the interface addressing the end user (individual) in our system should be personalised to their circumstances and context. This personalisation should extend to the messages and communication style from the system to the user, if we wish for the system to be impactful and change behaviour in a significant and meaningful manner. A particular paradigm we will be exploring in this direction is the “coaching” dialogue based on personalised model of the specific individual.
Arousing and retaining attention using techniques structured around the Fogg Behavioural Model, including bright colours, low barriers to opening the app, and personalised gamification features, especially in the individual-facing interfaces. In establishing the proposed colour schema, for example, we try to balance the principles of attracting and keeping attention on one side, and the health-care related theme of our application, which suggested more pastel-like and less aggressive colour schema. The results are illustrated in the proposed templates for desktop interface and mobile device interface.
User-centric design process to drive the development of our interfaces. These should be prototyped in an iterative manner with the active participation of our pilot participants at first, then followed by representatives of all target stakeholder groups. This process has started with this deliverable and will complete with the user-oriented usability evaluation conducted in WP7. The definition of evaluation criteria is left for the second deliverable of T2.4, D2.9 due to be released in M20 (August 2022).