Involving people with dementia and their informal caregivers in the development process of assistive technology: Description and evaluation of a user-centered design (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Despite the potential value of assistive technology to support people with dementia (PWD) in everyday activities, use of these technologies is still limited. To ensure that assistive technologies better address the specific needs and daily context of PWD and their informal caregivers, it is particularly important to involve them in all different phases of assistive technology development. The literature rarely describes the involvement of PWD throughout the development process of assistive technologies, which makes it difficult to further reflect on and improve active involvement of PWD. OBJECTIVE This two-part study aimed to gather insights on the user-centered design (UCD) applied in the development process of the alpha prototype of the serious game PLAYTIME by describing the methods and procedures of the UCD as well as evaluating the UCD from the perspective of all involved stakeholders. METHODS The first three phases of the user-driven Living Lab of Innovate Dementia 2.0 were applied to directly involve PWD and their informal caregivers through qualitative research methods, including focus groups and a context-field study, in the development of the alpha prototype of PLAYTIME from exploration to design to testing. After the testing phase, a total number of 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with PWD, their informal caregivers and the project members of PLAYTIME to evaluate the applied UCD from the perspective of all involved stakeholders. The interviews addressed five of the principles for successful UCD and the appropriateness of the different methods used in the focus groups and context-field study. RESULTS Results of the interviews focused, amongst others, on the level of involvement of PWD and their informal caregivers in the development process, the input provided by PWD and their informal caregivers, the value of early prototyping, continuous iterations of design solutions and in-context testing, the role of dementia care professionals in the multidisciplinary project team, and the appropriateness of open- and closed-ended questions for obtaining input from PWD and their informal caregivers. CONCLUSIONS The description and evaluation of the UCD applied in the development process of the alpha prototype of PLAYTIME resulted in several insights on the relevance of UCD for all involved stakeholders as well as how PWD can be involved in the subsequent phases of usable and meaningful assistive technology development.