Scottie: design for social connectedness in healthcare

Abstract

Scottie is a research and design project, in which the role of information and communication technology (ICT) was explored in fostering social connectedness between people who are physically or geographically separated, such as children who have to stay in a hospital for a long time, and their parents and friends at home. The prototype underwent several changes in an iterative design process, in which the users played an important role. By applying co-creation, users were involved in order to integrate their emotional experiences into the design. The sensibilities of this specific user group and the design challenges faced when mediating social connectedness are described. Involving the intended participants of hospitalised children turned out to be a challenge because it is difficult to anticipate hospitalisation, and because hospitalised children are often physically not well enough and their parents are emotionally too stressed to participate. The user evaluation resulted in a shift in interest of the participants, namely from hospitalised children towards elderly people who live in nursing homes and are disconnected from their social circle of family and friends.

Keywords:

• social connectedness
• media ICT
• affective computing
• healthcare
• co-creation with children and elderly

Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by the GATE (Game Research for Training and Entertainment) project, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Netherlands ICT Research and Innovation Authority (ICT Regie), the Sluyterman van Loo Foundation and the ROACK Foundation. The authors would like to thank the Scottie project team at Waag Society, Technical University Delft, the CliniClowns and the users who were involved in the development process and user testing.