Wärnestål Pontus, Svedberg Petra, Lindberg Susanne, Nygren Jens M
School of Information Technology, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden.
School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden.
J Med Internet Res. 2017 May 18;19(5):e161. doi: 10.2196/jmir.7175.
Peer support services have the potential to support children who survive cancer by handling the physical, mental, and social challenges associated with survival and return to everyday life. Involving the children themselves in the design process allows for adapting services to authentic user behaviors and goals. As there are several challenges that put critical requirements on a user-centered design process, we developed a design method based on personas adapted to the particular needs of children that promotes health and handles a sensitive design context.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of using child personas in the development of a digital peer support service for childhood cancer survivors.
The user group's needs and behaviors were characterized based on cohort data and literature, focus group interviews with childhood cancer survivors (n=15, 8-12 years), stakeholder interviews with health care professionals and parents (n=13), user interviews, and observations. Data were interpreted and explained together with childhood cancer survivors (n=5) in three explorative design workshops and a validation workshop with children (n=7).
We present findings and insights on how to codesign child personas in the context of developing digital peer support services with childhood cancer survivors. The work resulted in three primary personas that model the behaviors, attitudes, and goals of three user archetypes tailored for developing health-promoting services in this particular use context. Additionally, we also report on the effects of using these personas in the design of a digital peer support service called Give Me a Break.
By applying our progressive steps of data collection and analysis, we arrive at authentic child-personas that were successfully used to design and develop health-promoting services for children in vulnerable life stages. The child-personas serve as effective collaboration and communication aids for both internal and external purposes.
同伴支持服务有潜力通过应对与癌症幸存及回归日常生活相关的身体、心理和社会挑战，来帮助癌症幸存儿童。让儿童自身参与设计过程能够使服务适应真实的用户行为和目标。由于存在若干对以用户为中心的设计过程提出关键要求的挑战，我们基于适应儿童特殊需求的人物角色开发了一种设计方法，该方法能促进健康并应对敏感的设计情境。
本研究的目的是评估在为儿童癌症幸存者开发数字同伴支持服务时使用儿童人物角色的效果。
基于队列数据和文献、对儿童癌症幸存者（n = 15，8 - 12岁）的焦点小组访谈、对医疗保健专业人员和家长（n = 13）的利益相关者访谈、用户访谈以及观察，对用户群体的需求和行为进行了特征描述。在三个探索性设计工作坊以及一个与儿童（n = 7）的验证工作坊中，与儿童癌症幸存者（n = 5）一起对数据进行了解释和说明。
我们展示了在与儿童癌症幸存者共同开发数字同伴支持服务的背景下，如何共同设计儿童人物角色的研究结果和见解。这项工作产生了三个主要人物角色，它们模拟了为在这一特定使用情境中开发促进健康服务而量身定制的三种用户原型的行为、态度和目标。此外，我们还报告了在名为“让我歇会儿”的数字同伴支持服务设计中使用这些人物角色的效果。
通过应用我们逐步的数据收集和分析步骤，我们得出了真实的儿童人物角色，这些角色成功地用于为处于脆弱生命阶段的儿童设计和开发促进健康的服务。儿童人物角色对内对外都是有效的协作和沟通辅助工具。
