overview

Robin: Enabling independence for adults with early-stage dementia

Individuals diagnosed with dementia don't want to lose their independence, but in the early stages, they often need assistance performing tasks to completion. Robin is an award-winning prototype for a conversational user interface that works with Amazon Alexa to provide assistance with routine management to users with cognitive impairments caused by conditions like dementia.

We published this work, and you can view it here. It has gone on to be cited in multiple publications, which you can view on that page. This project earned second prize at the SIGCHI 2017 Student Design Competition.

Role & Duration

UX Designer & Project Lead
2016 - 2 months

Challenge

Currently, assistive technologies that provide in-home cognitive support have not been widely adopted. Individuals often rely on informal caregivers to help with daily activities, resulting in 37 billion unpaid caregiver hours annually. 

Can we repurpose existing technology to allow people with cognitive impairments to remain independent in their homes for as long as possible?

Approach

I established and led this design team for entry into the CHI Student Design Competition (Teammates: Jayanth Prathipati, Adena Lin, Clare Carroll, and Catherine Chiodo). Our entry won second place in the competition (out of 70 original entries from around the globe, 12 semi-finalists, and 4 finalist groups), and our research paper was published by ACM.

Project strategy & leadership

As project lead, I assigned deliverables and ensured that we met project deadlines.

Research leadership

Catherine and I performed all of our primary research, interviewing caregivers and healthcare providers. I contributed revisions to our final paper for submission.

UX Design

I crafted low- and medium-fidelity prototypes of the app interface, which Clare then developed into our final prototype.

Concept video development

I shot, edited, and finalized our final concept video for submission into the contest.

designs

Design Requirements & Process

We used a dementia patient and a primary informal caregiver as user personas and created 30 scenarios. From this, we found three areas where routine assistance could help: reminders, step-by-step guidance, and improving quality-of-life. 

We then storyboarded three scenarios and used them in collaborative speed-dating sessions with caregivers and healthcare providers. We learned that older adults are eager to adopt technologies that will help them maintain independence but accessibility was important (touch screens were hard to use while voice interaction was seen as more accessible). Our solution should:

1. Support successful routine management

2. Enable user to remain independent in their own home for as long as possible

3. Be customizable so that it can adapt to the user's cognitive decline

4. Be inexpensive and readily available

Features

Our research dictated certain required features that needed to be included in any final design.

• Routine Management: Robin can remind users to complete tasks within their daily routine.

• Step-by-Step Guidance: When users get stuck, they can ask Robin to list steps for a certain task.

• Orients Users in Activities: Robin (when prompted) can inform users which task needs to be done

Prototyping & Testing

Using paper prototypes, we performed four think-aloud usability tests. We then designed a digital prototype of the application interface, performing four additional think-alouds as we iterated on the digital version. We polished our solution by performing a heuristic evaluation using AARP-developed website heuristics for older adults.

solution

Robin, a conversational UI

The artifacts of our concept were a concept video, a poster (used in a juried presentation), and a clickable tablet prototype.

Our final design solution is Robin, a prototype of a tablet application and corresponding conversational UI that provides voice prompts and task guidance to users.

To create a welcoming tone with high legibility, we chose to use pastel colors with a high contrast between text and background color. For the same reason, we used a sans-serif font.

Value

• Empowers people living with degenerative brain diseases by prolonging their independence

• Lessens the economic and financial burden on caregivers

• Technology used is readily available and affordably priced

• Intuitive and simple user experience with as-needed system updates

Validation

We went back to the forums that we had studied in our research phase and posted a three-question survey, asking users who had trouble with task execution if they would be interested in using a voice assistant for guidance. 

65% of respondents said that they would be interested in trying a conversational UI like Robin.

Reflection: What we'd change in the future

• Allow push notifications so Robin is able to provide proactive prompts

• Incorporate machine learning to allow Robin to learn when and where a user completes certain tasks, minimizing the need for manual programming

Currently, our present design still stands as a simple yet effective routine management solution for those with early and middle stage dementia, leading to a higher quality of life for patients and their caregivers.

publication