Designing Tangibles to Support Emotion Logging for Older Adults: Development and Usability Study

Gooch, Daniel; Mehta, Vikram; Stuart, Avelie; Katz, Dmitri; Bennasar, Mohamed; Levine, Mark; Bandara, Arosha; Nuseibeh, Bashar; Bennaceur, Amel and Price, Blaine (2022). Designing Tangibles to Support Emotion Logging for Older Adults: Development and Usability Study. JMIR Human Factors, 9(2), article no. e34606.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2196/34606

Abstract

Background: The global population is ageing, leading to shifts in healthcare needs. In addition to developing technology to support physical health, there is an increasing recognition of the need to consider how technology can support emotional health. This raises the question of how to design devices that older adults can interact with to log their emotions.
Objective: We designed and developed two novel tangible devices, inspired by existing paper-based scales of emotions. The findings from a field trial of these devices with older adults are reported.
Methods: Using interviews, field deployment, and fixed logging tasks, the developed devices were assessed.
Results: Our results demonstrate that the tangible devices provided data comparable with standardised psychological scales of emotion. The participants developed their own patterns of use around the devices, and their experience of using the devices uncovered a variety of design considerations. We discuss the difficulty of customising devices for specific user needs while logging data comparable to psychological scales of emotion. We also highlight the value of reflecting on sparse emotional data.
Conclusions: Our work demonstrates the potential for tangible emotional logging devices. It also supports further research on whether such devices can support the emotional health of older adults through encouraging reflection of their emotional state.

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About

• Item ORO ID
• 82644
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  STRETCH: Socio-Technical Resilience for Enhancing Targeted Community Healthcare	EP/P01013X/1	EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
  SERVICE: Social and Emotional Resilience for the Vulnerable Impacted by the COVID-19 Emergency	EP/V027263/1	EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)

• Keywords
• Older adults; Health; Emotion; Affect; Wellbeing; Tangible Interaction; TUI
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
  Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
• Copyright Holders
• © 2022 The Authors
• Depositing User
• Daniel Gooch