Desai Shital, Mutsuddi Rupsha, Astell Arlene J
Department of Computational Arts, School of Arts Media Performance and Design, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Social and Technological Systems (SaTS) Lab, School of Arts Media Performance and Design, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Sports Act Living. 2024 Aug 9;6:1419263. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1419263. eCollection 2024.
Dementia impacts millions worldwide and is challenging individuals' ability to engage in daily activities. Active living is crucial in mitigating dementia's neurodegenerative effects, yet people with dementia often struggle to initiate and complete tasks independently. Technologies offer promising solutions to engage people with dementia in activities of active living and improving their quality of life through prompting and cueing. It is anticipated that developments in sensor and wearable technologies will result in mixed reality technology becoming more accessible in everyday homes, making them more deployable. The possibility of mixed reality technologies to be programmed for different applications, and to adapt them to different levels of impairments, behaviours and contexts, will make them more scalable.
The study aimed to develop a better understanding of modalities of prompts that people with dementia perceive successfully and correctly in mixed reality environments. It investigated interactions of people with dementia with different types of visual (graphics, animation, etc.) and sound (human voice, tones, etc.) prompts in mixed reality technologies.
We used the Research through Design (RtD) method in this study. This paper describes the findings from the user research carried out in the study. We conducted observation studies with twenty-two people with dementia playing games on off-the-shelf mixed reality technologies, including both Augmented Reality (HoloLens, ArKit on iPhone) and Augmented Virtuality (Xbox Kinect and Osmo) technologies. The interactions with the technologies during the gameplay were video recorded for thematic analysis in Noldus Observer XT (version 16.0) for successful and correct perception of prompts.
A comparison of the probability estimates of correct perception of the prompts by people with dementia suggests that human voice, graphic symbols and text are the most prominently perceived modalities of prompts. Feedback prompts for every action performed by people with dementia on the technology are critical for successful perception and should always be provided in the design.
The study has resulted in recommendations and guidelines for designers to design prompts for people with dementia in mixed-reality environments. The work lays the foundation for considering mixed reality technologies as assistive tools for people with dementia, fostering discussions on their accessibility and inclusive design in technology development.
痴呆症影响着全球数百万人，对个人参与日常活动的能力构成挑战。积极生活对于减轻痴呆症的神经退行性影响至关重要，但痴呆症患者往往难以独立发起和完成任务。技术提供了有前景的解决方案，通过提示和引导让痴呆症患者参与积极生活活动并提高他们的生活质量。预计传感器和可穿戴技术的发展将使混合现实技术在日常家庭中更易获取，从而更易于部署。混合现实技术能够针对不同应用进行编程，并使其适应不同程度的损伤、行为和情境，这将使其更具可扩展性。
该研究旨在更好地理解痴呆症患者在混合现实环境中成功且正确感知的提示方式。它调查了痴呆症患者与混合现实技术中不同类型的视觉（图形、动画等）和声音（人声、音调等）提示的交互情况。
本研究采用设计研究法（RtD）。本文描述了该研究中用户研究的结果。我们对22名痴呆症患者进行了观察研究，他们使用现成的混合现实技术玩游戏，包括增强现实（HoloLens、iPhone上的ArKit）和增强虚拟（Xbox Kinect和Osmo）技术。游戏过程中与技术的交互被视频记录下来，以便在Noldus Observer XT（版本16.0）中进行主题分析，以确定对提示的成功且正确的感知。
对痴呆症患者正确感知提示的概率估计进行比较表明，人声、图形符号和文本是最显著被感知的提示方式。痴呆症患者在技术上执行的每一个动作的反馈提示对于成功感知至关重要，并且在设计中应始终提供。
该研究为设计师在混合现实环境中为痴呆症患者设计提示提供了建议和指导方针。这项工作为将混合现实技术视为痴呆症患者的辅助工具奠定了基础，促进了在技术开发中关于其可及性和包容性设计的讨论。
