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Co-designing Tangible Break Reminders with People with Repetitive Strain Injury

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Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021 (INTERACT 2021)

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Abstract

People with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) performing computer work for 4+ hours/day should take microbreaks every hour to reduce their symptoms. Unlike apps and notifications, tangible user interfaces offer the opportunity to provide non-focus-demanding and calm break-reminders in users’ periphery. This paper explores this design space to identify the design parameters of break-reminders as everyday things. First, we discuss and analyze our initial co-designing study, where 11 participants with RSI created 9 low-fidelity prototypes. Then, we present our results-led high-fidelity prototypes and demonstrate the use of the findings in directing the design decisions of the technical implementation. Finally, we take our designs back to users in a second study to gain deeper insight on their reflection on physical break reminders. Results show how users designed for calmness and ubiquity in their everyday environment, playful user engagement and emotional shape-shifting among other design qualities.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported and funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through Research and Education in Accessibility, Design, and Innovation (READi) CREATE Training Program (497303-2017), a Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2017-507935). It was also supported by the Royal Society – International Exchanges (ref. IES\R2\170109).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Aditi Singh, Sara Nabil & Audrey Girouard

  2. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Sara Nabil

  3. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Anne Roudaut

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  1. Aditi Singh
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  2. Sara Nabil
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  3. Anne Roudaut
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  4. Audrey Girouard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Audrey Girouard .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Ardito

  2. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Rosa Lanzilotti

  3. Computer Science Department, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Alessio Malizia

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK

    Helen Petrie

  5. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Antonio Piccinno

  6. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Giuseppe Desolda

  7. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Kori Inkpen

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Singh, A., Nabil, S., Roudaut, A., Girouard, A. (2021). Co-designing Tangible Break Reminders with People with Repetitive Strain Injury. In: Ardito, C., et al. Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021. INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12932. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85623-6_18

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