GROW WITH ME
A High-Fidelity prototype that integrates Augmented Reality with Personal Health Informatics
TEAM
Yuchen Zhao, Tulika Banerjee
MY JOB
Unity Development, Design, Paper
TOOLS
Unity 3D,Figma, AR Foundation, XR Interaction Toolkit
DELIVERABLES
Project + Paper
Android
INSTRUCTOR
Prof. Jennifer Gahee Kim
PURPOSE
Project for Personal Health Informatics class
DURATION
2022.10- now (ongoing)
CATEGORY
AR, Personal Health Informatics
AFFILIATIONS
Georgia Tech
PRESENTATIONS/PUBLICATIONS
• IDEA
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle requires ongoing efforts. A range of technologies, such as wearable devices, ubiquitous computing, mobile devices, and social media, have been utilized and investigated to motivate individuals to keep healthy. Various strategies have been used to encourage individuals to participate in health-related activities. In this study, we will use augmented reality’s immersion, interaction affordance, and integration with personal health informatics to stimulate emotion and improve involvement and engagement. In addition, we will gather quantitative and qualitative data on immersion, emotion, and engagement to determine whether AR is a strong medium for health intervention. In the HCI design field, we also demonstrate a novel AR method that integrates with health data in order to inspire further interesting applications.
• KEY FEATURES
AR in Health Intervention
AR + Health data
Personal Health Informatics
Emotional Design
Interactive Design
Persuasive Technology
• DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
How to integrate personal health data with AR?
What is the design space for AR + personal health data?
How will AR be used in the field of health intervention?
How can AR be used for emotional design?
Will AR motivate people more in keeping health lifestyle?
• DESIGN PROCESS
1. Concept Building
Our project uses Augmented Reality (AR) combining personal health informatic to motivate people to keep good health habits. Specifically, we use AR, an emerging technology, to evoke users’ emotion and increase their engagement by using its immersion and interaction affordance. To solve the problem of the lack of motivation and numeracy literacy, we design a high-fidelity prototype to implement gamification and leverage storytelling through the AR experience to encourage users to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Here, the user use their personal health data to raise a virtual pet in AR. For example, the user’s walking steps will determine the weight of the virtual pet; the user’s water intake will be the dog’s water intake, etc.
2. Interface Design
The interface’s main purpose is to gather user health information from the mobile sensor (such as step count) and to let the user enter certain daily information (such as water and calorie intake). These health information will be linked to the health of the user’s AR pet.
3. AR Interaction Design
Compared to traditional 2D screen media, body interactivity is one of the most essential AR affordances. We would want to emphasize this feature to differentiate the experience.
Through their smartphones, users may engage with the virtual dog in our project. Depending on the user’s completion level (as mentioned above), the interaction level will vary. In addition, the interaction level will grow as the completion rate increases.
4. User Study
For the final study, both within-subject and between-subject methods were utilized. Ten participants were recruited and randomly allocated to two groups. Group 1 was exposed to the 2D screen first followed by the Augmented Reality screen whereas Group 2 looked at the AR screen first followed by the 2D screen. Participants walked through five user scenarios for each condition. The participants were then asked to complete a brief survey in order to quantify their experience. At the end of the study, each participant was asked qualitative questions on their experience, emotional connection, and engagement with each of the two approaches.
We also had an interview question at the end of the survey that asked users to compare between the AR and 2D versions. 80% of participants selected augmented reality (AR) as their tool for motivation, citing its realism, engaging interactions, and ability to trigger powerful emotional reactions, particularly in the case of sadness. Participants who were skeptics, however, also cited the drawbacks of AR, such as the necessity for excessive space and lengthy loading times, which could prevent them from opening the app in public areas or time-sensitive scenarios.
Acknowlegement
Thanks everyone that assisted us with user testing!