Intellectually disabled people experience distinct difficulty when trying to stay actively engaged with the healthcare processes generating a recurring lack of adherence to healthcare procedures (Baumbusch, Phinney & Baumbusch, 2014). Serious medical hazards to the patients themselves as well as enormous amounts of related economic costs emerge as consequences.
Research into the driving factors which identify the merit of low adherence numbers in the intellectually disabled population demographic is executed to provide an adherence enhancing design to these unique clients. Through qualitative interviews and surveying, driving factors for no-shows at healthcare appointments are established.
To alleviate the impact of these driving factors, we propose TessyBud: a habit-forming video game and interactive plushie collar as a means to improve a lacking adherence. TessyBud stimulates the subconscious interaction with healthcare appointments through an associative experience with said appointments, relieving stressors and creating a sense of preparedness in the client, which raises comfort levels for appointment attendance.
During this project, I was able to work with a client, ORO. This was the first time I was fully in charge of the communication and interviews, an opportunity I did not have in previous projects. My main learning points were finding which questions to ask to efficiently analyze client ideas, how to overcome the communication barrier by creating sketches of what they were thinking, and how to communicate the ideas the team had. By designing the main idea of the app, I was able to solidify my knowledge on its interactions. This was a nice challenge as I had to focus on the design guidelines that were set by us and ORO when it came to user interfaces targeting intellectually disabled.
This project further solidified my professional identity and vision of wanting to work with “marginalized” target groups and create a positive impact on peoples lives.
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