We finalised the collection of patient feedback, which was instrumental in the design of the VR app. Here’s how it went!
The TIMELAPSE team, together with colleagues from SEGE, has completed the participatory design phase of the project, which involved a group of patients, their caregivers, and part of the clinical staff of the oncology department of the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza. The participants responded warmly to the proposed activities and provided fundamental and sometimes surprising insights.
The data collected and elaborated will make it possible to direct the production of the new TIMELAPASE app so that it responds to the needs and wishes expressed by the patients themselves, with the ultimate aim of speeding up and easing time passage during chemotherapy sessions.
What is participatory design?
Participatory design is a design approach that aims to actively involve all stakeholders, and in particular end users, in the conception and development process of a product to ensure that it meets their needs to the greatest extent possible.
The participatory design activities we carried out correspond to the second phase of the TIMELAPSE project. During the first phase, we explored the scientific literature on the topic of modulating time passage, with a specific focus on the use of media technologies for this purpose, in search of indications for the development of our app. However, we wanted to put our preliminary conclusions to the test with our specific target group, the cancer patients.
In order to ensure methodological rigour in this phase of the project, the TIMELAPSE team collaborated with SEGE srl, a Milan-based service design company with specific expertise in the field of healthcare.
The two labs
The participatory design activities were developed over the course of two workshops.
A total of 24 people participated in the first one, including patients, their caregivers and clinical staff. First, AN-ICON researchers provided an introduction to VR, illustrating technical aspects, possibilities of use, advantages and limitations of this technology. Participants tried out 5 commercial VR apps, with varying degrees of interactivity and different graphical features and game dynamics. Afterwards, SEGE colleagues employed brainstorming and feedback gathering tools to investigate participants‘ expectations, needs and possible difficulties.
The processing of the data from the first lab made it possible to select, this time in a very targeted manner, a new VR app to be tested by the users. During the second lab, dedicated only to the patients, the latter experienced the selected app and then participated in a semi-structured interview.
The purpose of the interview was to assess the degree of functionality and satisfaction with the VR app, and to gather further and more refined suggestions for the design of the new TIMELAPSE app.
What we learned
First of all, we were very happy to observe a very positive response of the participants to the proposed activities. The patients, but also their caregivers and clinical staff, showed great enthusiasm and offered their help in an extremely active and generous way.
A fact of scientific interest quickly came to our attention: the existing literature on the topic of time acceleration applies only to a limited extent to the specific target group of the TIMELAPSE project. What works for the general population, in other words, may work much less for our patients, or not at all. This finding, which was initially somewhat unsettling, nevertheless confirmed the correctness of our intuition to envisage a participatory design phase, and further motivated us to conduct it to the best of our ability.
The elaboration of the collected data allowed us to formulate rather precise development indications on at least three levels:
- the choice of content
- the modes of interaction and engagement
- the necessary adjustments at the level of interface and device
In this last regard, it was extremely instructive, during the second lab, to take the VR headsets and app into the patients’ rooms, in order to understand the limitations of use imposed by the lying position and the the infusion equipment.
Next steps
The research and participatory design activities are now complete — now it’s Khora’s turn! The development guidelines gathered so far will steer the work of the creative and programming team from Denmark, who have officially started production of the new TIMELAPSE app.
The first prototype will be tested over the summer with a new group of patients at San Gerardo Hospital.
Stay tuned for more updates!
