Co-Designing Accessible Computer and Smartphone Input Using Physical Computing

This paper shows that computer users and smartphone users taking part in a web survey optimized for smartphones give responses of almost the same quality. Combining a design of one question in each page and innovative page navigation methods, we can get high quality data by both computer and smartphone users. The two groups of users are also compared with regard to their precisely measured item response times. The analysis shows that using a smartphone instead of a computer increases about 20% the geometric mean of item response times. The data analyzed in this paper were collected by a smartphone-friendly web survey. All question texts are short and the response buttons are large and easy to use. As a result, there are no significant interactions between smartphone use and either the length of the question or the age of the respondent. Thus, the longer response times among smartphone users should be explored in other causes, such as the likelihood of smartphone users being distracted by their environment.

Co-design of an mHealth application for family carers of people with dementia to address needs related to the functional disability of their care recipients

Background: Due to the emergence of oral anticancer drugs (OACD), changes in traditional roles and responsibilities of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in oncology and re-organization of current care processes are needed. Moreover, considering the ambulatory character of OACD, involvement of primary care HCPs seems crucial. Ten Belgian hospitals participated in the Collaborative Network to take Responsibility for Oral Anticancer Therapy (CONTACT)-project, aiming to co-design and implement a transmural care pathway for patients on OACD. This study aimed to get insight in the co-design process in these hospitals and its results. Methods: In each hospital, a project team, including a project coordinator, was set up. Project teams started the co-design process from the results of an assessment of the current care process, performed from the perspective of patients and HCPs, by using questionnaires. Throughout the co-design process, project team meetings and in-between meetings in smaller groups, were held and reported by the local coordinator. For this study, a qualitative content analysis was conducted using reports and care pathway documents provided by the local project coordinators. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with the coordinators were conducted to get a deeper understanding of the co-design process. Results: Although hospitals were encouraged to involve representatives of primary care in the co-design process, only few hospitals invited them to participate. Even in those hospitals where they were invited, their participation strongly decreased during the process. In the current practice assessment, the involvement of primary care HCPs was evaluated poorly by both patients and HCPs. In most hospitals, community pharmacists and home care nurses were not informed about the start of treatment. None of the primary care HCPs, including the general practitioner (GP), did receive necessary information about the OACD or contact details of the hospital team. Also, the therapy plan of the patient was not shared with the primary care HCPs. The care pathways that were developed during the co-design process almost all mentioned that an information leaflet about the OACD and a therapy plan of the patient should be added to the report for the GP at the start of treatment. In the care pathway of half of the hospitals, it was mentioned that the same information should also be provided to the community pharmacist and home care nurse. Based on the reports, the hospital teams did not seem to take any further initiatives to elaborate transmural care. In the interviews, coordinators indicated that more extensive transmural collaboration is rather a long-term perspective; hospital teams seem to think they first need to focus on in-hospital reorganization. Discussion: Informing primary care HCPs, especially the GP, about treatment-initiation seemed a feasible intervention and was considered a quick win. This rather small initiative can have a large impact on care quality as it enables primary care HCPs to take up their role in the care for patients on OACD. As building transmural collaboration does only seem feasible after a thorough in-hospital reorganization, a phased approach, in which collaboration with primary care is further elaborated in a second phase, seems appropriate.

Edge computing is a cloud computing extension where physical computers are installed closer to the device to minimize latency. The task of edge data centers is to include a growing abundance of applications with a small capability in comparison to conventional data centers. Under this framework, Federated Learning was suggested to offer distributed data training strategies by the coordination of many mobile devices for the training of a popular Artificial Intelligence (AI) model without actually revealing the underlying data, which is significantly enhanced in terms of privacy. Federated learning (FL) is a recently developed decentralized profound learning methodology, where customers train their localized neural network models independently using private data, and then combine a global model on the core server together. The models on the edge server use very little time since the edge server is highly calculated. But the amount of time it takes to download data from smartphone users on the edge server has a significant impact on the time it takes to complete a single cycle of FL operations. A machine learning strategic planning system that uses FL in conjunction to minimise model training time and total time utilisation, while recognising mobile appliance energy restrictions, is the focus of this study. To further speed up integration and reduce the amount of data, it implements an optimization agent for the establishment of optimal aggregation policy and asylum architecture with several employees’ shared learners. The main solutions and lessons learnt along with the prospects are discussed. Experiments show that our method is superior in terms of the effective and elastic use of resources.

Older people returning home after unplanned hospital admissions often experience fragmented care, leading to poor health outcomes and rehospitalisation. Taking a person-centred approach, we co-designed and piloted a care transition service with older people, their carers, and health professionals, to improve the care of older people as they transitioned from hospital to home. We conducted five co-design workshops with healthcare professionals and older people who had experienced frequent hospital presentations, to explore ways to improve the transition from hospital to home. The workshops culminated in the co-design of a Care transition Coordinator (CTC) role. We undertook a 6-month pilot study in one metropolitan hospital in Adelaide, Australia, to determine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the role from an older person and health system perspective. Descriptive data were extracted from Comprehensive Geriatric Assessments, action sheets, patient checklists, and hospital databases, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with service users, providers, and referrers and thematically analysed to provide qualitative insights into the service. Thirty-five older people were cared for by the CTC during their transition from hospital to home. The CTC was perceived to meet the needs of older people and was well received by older people, their families/carers, and referrers. However, there were some challenges to the feasibility of the service from a service-provider perspective. Our findings indicate that it is possible to engage frail, older people who are frequent hospital presenters in a co-design process, and to design services that are informed by, and meet their needs.

How do farmers change their practices at the farm level after co-design processes in Farmer Field Schools?

Background Non-specific neck and shoulder pain is a prevalent condition among working adults. The surge in remote work and online activities following the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the potential increase in such pain due to prolonged usage of electronic devices. However, recent literature has introduced the possibility that desk-bound computer work may not necessarily correlate with neck and shoulder pain. This study aims to explore the relationship between the severity of neck and shoulder pain and the duration of electric device usage, alongside other lifestyle factors. Methods An online survey was distributed through email and advertisements to individuals aged 21 and above in Singapore. The survey collected data on participant demographics, the extent of neck and shoulder pain experienced, the duration of computer and smartphone usage, as well as lifestyle factors like sleep duration and exercise frequency. The Institutional Review Board approval number of this study is 2023014. Results A total of 268 valid responses were collected, comprising 182 participants experiencing neck and shoulder pain (I group) and 86 participants without such pain (C group). Both groups exhibited similar demographics. Notably, a significant difference was identified in the exercise frequency per week (I = 2.17 days; C = 2.95 days, p < 0.01), while the difference in sitting duration approached statistical significance (I = 7.13 hrs; C = 6.38 hrs, p = 0.085). No statistically significant differences were observed in the duration of smartphone usage (I = 5.19 hrs; C: 4.62 hrs, p = 0.18), computer use (I = 6.24 hrs; C = 5.94 hrs, p = 0.51), and average daily exercise time (I = 1.87 hrs; C = 1.85 hrs, p = 0.99). Within the group experiencing neck and shoulder pain, a significant correlation emerged between pain levels and age (r = 0.19, p = 0.01). Conversely, no significant correlations were detected between pain levels and computer or smartphone usage duration, prolonged sitting, sleep duration, exercise frequency or duration. Conclusion In this ongoing study, preliminary findings indicate that the existence of neck and shoulder pain does not exhibit a significant association with the duration of sitting work, smartphone or computer use. Interestingly, the exercise frequency might have a potential relationship with neck and shoulder pain. Notably, our data demonstrates a weak yet statistically significant correlation between the severity of neck and shoulder pain and the age of participants but not other lifestyle factors.

Purpose Co-design aims to strengthen design outcomes by meaningfully engaging users in design processes. To enhance architectural accessibility, there is increased interest in engaging people with disability in co-design processes. However, little is known about how co-design is implemented in the design of large-scale public buildings, what outcomes are achieved and what factors influence the meaningful participation of people with disability in architectural co-design. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was employed to explore stakeholder perspectives on a co-design initiative undertaken to enhance the universal design of a civic precinct in Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants – five architects, three City Council employees and one Council Access and Inclusion Advisory Committee member. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. This approach identified key themes that encapsulated participants’ experiences and perceptions of co-design with people with disability to enhance the universal design of a public building. Findings Four overarching themes were identified from the analysis: (1) Co-design is shaped by those involved; (2) Co-design must be meaningful and inclusive; (3) Co-design and universal design must be prioritised throughout design stages; and (4) Co-design leads to improved design and capacity building. Originality/value This study contributes new knowledge about the practice of co-design in the context of large-scale public architecture. It provides valuable insight into the experiences of architects, people with disability and local government stakeholders, revealing both the complexities and potential of inclusive co-design. Findings also suggest a reciprocal relationship between universal design and co-design whereby application of one approach may strengthen application of the other.

With the rapid development of educational tools, co-design has been on the rise. Co-design is instrumental in successful product development as it merges two key perspectives, namely consumers’ insights and professionals’ knowledge. The roles of users, designers, and developers are now blurred as educators have begun to construct their own tools for teaching based on problems and ideas conceived in their classrooms, thereby assuming roles as designers and to some extent, as developers. A more common practice in recent days is educators’ co-designing of tools with system developers to achieve their targeted goal. This study attempted to explore the process of co-designing an augmented reality (AR) mobile application and the role of a system developer in mediating the design process with non-designers, namely academic members of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia. This study further aimed to delineate the nuances of the AR mobile application co-design experience from the perspective of the system developer. Semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analyses were conducted to examine the detailed process of co-designing and developing the AR application as well as to understand the developer’s interaction with the consumers. The main findings of this study suggest that the waterfall model of the Software Development Life Cycle was in use during the co-design process. This cycle generally involves five stages, namely (i) planning, (ii) analysis, (iii) design, (iv) implementation, and (v) maintenance, which are iterative in nature. The designer’s role in mediating the co-design process encompassed balancing their knowledge and experience with the needs of consumers that do not necessarily match the designer’s expectations. This was achieved through (i) precise communication, (ii) commitment to the delivery and quality of the AR mobile application, as well as to building cohesive working relationships, and (iii) motivation to work with co-designers during the development process. The findings shed light on the value of co-design and the complex role of designers in mediating the design process with non-designers, which when accounted for, can lead to more feasible project development.

Bronchiolitis is the leading cause of hospitalisation in infants under one year. While evidence-based guidelines exist, including the updated Australasian Bronchiolitis Guidelines (2025), variations in care persist. Improving care in regional and rural hospitals is challenging due to limited access to paediatric expertise and evidence-based resources, contributing to continued use of low-value interventions. This mixed methods study will use a human-centred design approach to co-design and evaluate the usability of the Regional and Rural Translation Bronchiolitis (RART-Bronch) platform, an interactive online tool targeted at non-metropolitan settings. The platform will feature bronchiolitis educational resources, implementation support, a benchmarking and feedback tool, and family education materials. Participants will be regional and rural clinicians and parents of infants hospitalised with bronchiolitis in these settings. Data will be collected through co-design meetings, usability surveys, semi-structured interviews, and think aloud methods. Engagement with the co-design process will also be evaluated. We will develop a user-friendly, evidence-based platform specific to regional and rural contexts that supports bronchiolitis guideline adherence and enhances clinical decision-making. Effectiveness will be evaluated in a future cluster randomised controlled trial and may inform future implementation strategies for improving care, quality and equity across regional and rural healthcare. This study aims to reduce variation in bronchiolitis care by co-designing an interactive online platform, RART-Bronch, with clinicians and parents from regional and rural settings. The platform aims to support sustainable reductions in low-value care and improve outcomes for infants with bronchiolitis. It will deliver evidence-based guidance to clinicians working in regional and rural hospitals with limited paediatric expertise. Findings will inform future implementation of tailored education, audit and feedback strategies in acute care. This work aims to enhance paediatric care quality in under-resourced settings and contribute to scalable, equitable improvements in bronchiolitis management across Australia.

Previous work (FORECAST) has shown that concerns of breast cancer patients after finishing radiotherapy are responsive to conversations with radiographers during the treatment period. This study seeks to further understand radiographer and patient experiences, determine shared priorities for improvement in clinical interaction and develop communication guidelines and training to help radiographers support patients.Methods: Using the principles of Experience-Based Co-Design, semi-structured interviews were held with N = 4 patients (videoed) and N = 4 radiographers, followed by feedback events (N = 7) to validate findings. Patients and radiographers exchanged experiences in a joint co-design session, agreed with shared priorities and generated ideas for further support. A survey was conducted for process evaluation. To scale up findings, UK-wide representatives from patient networks (N = 8) and radiographers and managerial staff (N = 16) provided consultative input utilizing an iterative, adaptive procedure.Results: Radiographers expressed a need for support with “difficult conversations,” especially those on Fear of Cancer Recurrence, and their appropriate management. Important pointers for reassuring communication were identified, including: being treated like a person, knowing what to expect, and space to ask questions. The co-design process was rated positively by both staff and patients. Thematic collation of findings and mapping these on literature evidence resulted in the “KEW” communication guidelines for radiographers: Know (Confidence; Expectations; Person), Encourage (Emotions; Space; Follow-up), Warmth (Start; Normalize; Ending). National stakeholder consultations validated and helped fine-tune the training model. The resulting training package, included: trigger videos (n = 6), a simulated patient scenario and interactive handouts on fears of cancer recurrence and the patient pathway.Conclusions: The co-design process captured good practice to help standardize quality in empathic communication in the radiotherapy service. The resulting KEW: Know, Encourage, Warmth guidelines, and training package are user-centered as well as evidence-based. Supplementing single-site co-design with national consultative feedback allows for the development of interventions that are relevant to the clinical practice, even in detail, and helps to generate appropriate buy-in for roll out on a wider scale after evaluation.Trial Registration:www.ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03468881

This paper builds on prior work Ryokai and colleagues from 2022, examining youths’ design processes, perspective-taking, and collaboration with VR SandScape—a mixed-reality system combining a spatial augmented reality (SAR) sandbox with a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD). The current case study examines how youths’ transgressive play—a form of play challenging established rules, norms, and expectations through creative manipulation of multiple meaning-making modes—expands the boundaries of possibility for multimodal learning within VR. By attuning to youths’ ingenuity and agency, we present three examples of youth co-designing new VR experiences through their play activity. Researchers presented youth with design challenges using VR SandScape. Analysis of video recordings, semi-structured interviews, and youth-created design artifacts revealed that transgressive play supported the development of multimodal interactions enabling youth to (1) learn by glitching sociotechnical systems; (2) leverage their bodies as semiotic resources to create VR user experiences; and (3) coordinate their embodied actions in which new narratives and roles were imagined and enacted. The findings highlight the potential of how transgressive play can transform top-down VR designs and learning objectives by centering youths’ ingenuity, agency, and co-design processes.

This study sheds light on how IDLE activities play role in developing an Indonesian in-service EFL teacher’s English proficiency. This study employed qualitative approach. One female in-service EFL teacher was purposively selected to become the participant. Data were garnered by written reflections and semi-structured interviews. The credibility of the data was achieved by employing the principles of data saturation. Qualitative coding was then used to analyze the data. To ensure the trustworthiness of the results, the analysis was repeated thrice at different times. The results indicate that both the quality of IDLE activities and the quantity of IDLE activities were important to develop English proficiency although receptive activities were still the most dominant. It was good to undertake IDLE activities on a daily basis. Several tools and resources were also needed to carry out IDLE activities such as gadgets, internet connection, applications, e-books, e-newspapers, as well as online reading and listening materials. Multimodal input such as visualization, lyrics, subtitles, and audio in IDLE activities was really helpful. It was also revealed that the underlying advantages of IDLE activities included providing language exposure, creating English environment, increasing confidence to use English, entertaining, having lots of free resources, as well as being flexible to be undertaken anytime and anywhere. Moreover, IDLE activities could enhance many language aspects such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, conversational skill, writing skill, speaking skill, and listening skill. Future studies on IDLE are encouraged and directed

This study explores the association of mobile media and citizens’ attitudes surrounding watchdog journalism in sub-Saharan Africa. Face-to-face survey interviews with 2,589 smartphone users were conducted in six sub-Saharan African nations that have seen rapid expansion of smartphone penetration in recent years. The use of mobile phones for news-seeking predicted positive attitudes about accountability journalism in democratic governance. Results contribute to more nuanced discussion about mobile media and news habits in an understudied region.

This study compared obese children's food group intakes with the new Dietary References Intakes for Koreans (KDRIs) food guides for 5th-6th grade school children. This study also determined the extent of sedentary life styles related with obesity in this area of children. This is a cross-sectional study of 799 school children. The dietitian sent a survey form describing the project and a questionnaire to the subject's family. The questionnaire included child demographics, family history of chronic diseases, the daily servings of five food groups, such as grains, meat and beans, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables. The daily or weekly hours of physical activity, television viewing, and computer usage were also surveyed. Obesity index (%) of the subjects was calculated, and children with an obesity index (%) equal to or greater than 20 were classified as the obese. Among the 799 participants, 50.7% were female. The percentages of the normal and the obese were 691 (86.5%) and 108 (13.5%) respectively. Obese children reported eating less vegetables (p<0.05), more high sugar snacks (p<0.05), and high fat snacks (p<0.05) than normal children. No significant differences in food servings of grains, meats and beans, and fruits, and dairy products between the normal and the obese were shown. Obese children reported fewer hours of physical activities (p<0.05) and more hours of computer usage (p<0.05) than normal children. Girls showed less likelihood of being obese (odds ratio, 0.575, CI (0.38, 0.87), p<0.05). More hours of physical activity significantly decreased the likelihood of being obese (odds ratio, 0.572, CI (0.35, 0.92), p<0.05). Family history of obesity almost doubled the likelihood of obesity in children (odds ratio, 2.653, CI (1.660, 4.241), p<0.05). In conclusion, frequent snacking, inadequate vegetable consumption, and sedentary lifestyle increased significantly the likelihood of obesity in children, which suggest that obesity intervention in this age group should focuse more on those variables.