by Nicolas Saavedra Rueda -

Using meditation for reducing stress, anxiety and depression

Virtual Reality Should Be Considered As a Helpful Tool for Mental Health – Virtual Reality and Mental Health

In the last months, I have research VR in medicine, in specific into the psychotherapy field. I wanted to design environments to treat stress, anxiety and depression using VR as a method. Despite the VR technologies demonstrate it is effective for these kinds of treatments is barely use. Making me think about what is wrong with it.

What I use to reduce stress levels

Trying to get away from the medicine to get a clear view of another way to help people using VR, I decided to ask my self “What I do to reduce my stress and anxiety?”.

7 Tips To Get Started With Meditation - Key Person of Influence

The answer is simple I use meditation. I have practised meditation for more than 5 years and it helps me to keep my stress levels down and it gives me time to cure myself in a different way.

The main problem of these is that people don’t know how to meditate. What I want now is to make a guide VR app for meditation for people that have the intention to learn and to calm down.

Benefits of meditation

There are a number of benefits that come from practising meditation. These can include:

  • Reducing stress. One of the most popular reasons that people meditate is to lower stress levels, and according to science, meditation does just that. According to a 2014 study,Trusted Source practicing meditation can lower levels of psychological stress and is helpful for overall well-being.
  • Improving sleep. If you have insomnia, one study shows that people who meditate are able to improve on their sleep schedules.
  • Helping with addictions. Since meditation typically requires a fair amount of self-awareness and discipline, researchTrusted Source shows that the practice can help acknowledge and avoid triggers.
  • Decreasing blood pressure. Meditation is very relaxing, and that relaxation may helpTrusted Source to lower blood pressure since your body is not responding to stress as often as it usually would.

Types of meditation

Meditation is an umbrella term for the many ways to a relaxed state of being. There are many types of meditation and relaxation techniques that have meditation components. All share the same goal of achieving inner peace.

Ways to meditate can include:

  • Guided meditation. Sometimes called guided imagery or visualization, with this method of meditation you form mental images of places or situations you find relaxing.You try to use as many senses as possible, such as smells, sights, sounds and textures. You may be led through this process by a guide or teacher.
  • Mantra meditation. In this type of meditation, you silently repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts.
  • Mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful, or having an increased awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment.In mindfulness meditation, you broaden your conscious awareness. You focus on what you experience during meditation, such as the flow of your breath. You can observe your thoughts and emotions, but let them pass without judgment.
  • Qi gong. This practice generally combines meditation, relaxation, physical movement and breathing exercises to restore and maintain balance. Qi gong (CHEE-gung) is part of traditional Chinese medicine.
  • Tai chi. This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts. In tai chi (TIE-CHEE), you perform a self-paced series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful manner while practicing deep breathing.
  • Transcendental Meditation®. Transcendental Meditation is a simple, natural technique. In Transcendental Meditation, you silently repeat a personally assigned mantra, such as a word, sound or phrase, in a specific way.This form of meditation may allow your body to settle into a state of profound rest and relaxation and your mind to achieve a state of inner peace, without needing to use concentration or effort.
  • Yoga. You perform a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises to promote a more flexible body and a calm mind. As you move through poses that require balance and concentration, you’re encouraged to focus less on your busy day and more on the moment.

Sources:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858

https://www.insider.com/benefits-of-meditation

https://www.mindful.org/how-to-meditate/

by Carina Steindl -

Comparative Analysis of fake and proper Fact-Checking Sites #P2

This blog entries will be about user experience. To achieve a qualitativ result, a survey about fact checking websites and their credibility, design and overall usability will be conducted later in the process.

First, questions need to be defined and certain fact-checking sites need to be evaluated. After doing some research and according to ISTE and LWF the following sites are some of the most used and trusted, especially for students and journalists:

Fact Check.

https://www.factcheck.org/

This nonpartisan, nonprofit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by U.S. political players, including politicians, TV ads, debates, interviews and news releases.

Media Matters.

https://www.mediamatters.org/

This nonprofit and self-described liberal-leaning research center monitors and corrects conservative misinformation in the media.

Truth or Fiction.

https://www.truthorfiction.com/

This nonpartisan website where Internet users can quickly and easily get information about eRumors, fake news, disinformation, warnings, offers, requests for help, myths, hoaxes, virus warnings, and humorous or inspirational stories that are circulated by email.

Open Secrets.

https://www.opensecrets.org/

This nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit website run by the Center for Responsive Politics tracks how much and where candidates get their money.

Politifact.

https://www.politifact.com/

This Pulitzer Prize winning website rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials. Run by editors and reporters from the independent newspaper Tampa Bay Times, Politicfact features the Truth-O-Meter, which was already mentioned in previous posts, that rates statements as “True,” “Mostly True,” “Half True,” “False,” and “Pants on Fire.”

ProPublica.

https://www.propublica.org/

This independent, nonprofit newsroom has won several Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2016 Prize for Explanatory Reporting. ProPublica produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

Snopes.

https://www.snopes.com/

This independent, nonpartisan website run by professional researcher and writer David Mikkelson researches urban legends and other rumors. It is often the first to set the facts straight on wild fake news claims.

The Sunlight Foundation.

https://sunlightfoundation.com/

This nonpartisan, nonprofit organization uses public policy data-based journalism to make politics more transparent and accountable.

Washington Post Fact Checker.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/?utm_term=.6f68b1246a31

Although the Washington Post has a left-center bias, its checks are excellent and sourced. The bias shows up because they fact check conservative claims more than liberal ones.

AP Fact Check.

https://apnews.com/hub/ap-fact-check

AP Fact Check from one of Media Bias Fact Check’s least-biased sources, focuses on fact checking political claims and publishes. IFCN Signatory.

Lead Stories.

https://leadstories.com/

Lead Stories uses the Trendolizer to track story trends and debunk fake news before it becomes viral. They are often the first to debunk outrageous claims with “hoax alerts.” MBFC rates it as dead-center least biased and very high on factual reporting. IFCN signatory.

Media Bias/Fact Check.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

Media Bias Fact Check (MBFC) is a fact-checking page, which relies strictly on signatories of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN) when evaluating the political/factual bias of 3,100+ media sources (left, center-left, least biased, center-right, right, pro-science, conspiracy and pseudo-science, questionable sources, and satire). It includes the methodology used to classify each source. Sources rated very high or high on factual reporting have proper sourcing and a clean fact check record. 

Next step is to find Fake News Sites and then conduct a few interviews with participants following a schematic questionnaire about the previously described propper fact-checking sites and the in the next post listed hoax, misleading or false information spreading sites.

by Julian Schwazer -

Extended Reality in the Automotive Industry | part 1

Reality – Virtuality Continuum

The Reality-Virtuality Continuum is very well-known and was already defined in 1994 by Paul Milgram. His paper “A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays” focused on Mixed Reality (MR) visual displays. He described MR as a

“subset of Virtual Reality (VR) related technologies that involve the merging of real and virtual worlds somewhere along the ‘virtuality continuum’ which connects completely real environments to completely virtual ones.”

Paul Milgram, 1994

source: https://virtualrealitypop.com/war-of-ar-vr-mr-xr-words-e2582ec0115a

His virtuality continuum explains the different steps in the transition from real environments on one end to completely virtual and computer-generated environments on the other end. Although these terms have already been officially defined, some of them are still not used correctly.

Extended Reality (XR) 

The term Extended Reality (XR) is relatively new. Sometimes it is also described as Cross Reality or X-Reality. It is an umbrella term for all combinations of real and virtual environments that are currently existing. XR will also include all immersive technologies that get developed in the future. Extended Reality technologies are already in use in several industries. Because they are also continuously getting cheaper and better they will be used even more in the future. The most popular XR technologies at the moment are Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

source: https://softengi.com/blog/xr-technologies-guiding-light-for-remote-consulting/

Mixed Reality (MR)

Mixed Reality is often used interchangeably with Augmented Reality (AR) but that’s wrong. It is an umbrella term for everything between the real world and the virtual world – including Augmented and Virtual Reality. MR blends the real world with the virtual world and creates complex environments. Because of these similarities, it is also hard to distinguish AR, VR and MR devices and applications. The most popular Mixed Reality device is the Microsoft HoloLens.

source: https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erklaert-was-ist-mixed-reality-definition-funktionen/

Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented Reality describes a real-world with an overlay of computer-generated information. Because there is no immersion into a virtual world, the real environment is still the center of information. The real world is just expanded with a projection of animations, infographics, videos, images, 3D objects, or other digital content. Currently, there are four different types of Augmented Reality devices:

  • Head-up displays – used in modern cars
  • Holographic displays – for example from Samsung
  • Smart glasses – Google Glass
  • Handheld AR – modern smartphone and tablet cameras

But existing smart glasses and holographic displays are still expensive and therefore also not available to a lot of people. According to different sources, it will take at least 5 to 10 more years until AR technology is mature enough and available for everybody. Augmented Reality is currently mainly used for games like Pokémon GO or image filters on Snapchat and Instagram but this technology has a lot more potential for all industries.

source: https://tekdeeps.com/the-ar-iphone-screen-on-apple-glass-to-protect-your-privacy/

Augmented Virtuality (AV)

Augmented Virtuality (AV) is one of the lesser-known immersive technologies. It is also a Mixed Reality technology and is situated between AR and VR on the Reality – Virtuality Continuum. Most of the time, AV applications and devices are just described as Mixed Reality. The term Augmented Virtuality is almost exclusively used in scientific papers. Examples for AV include computer games with real players, virtual concerts with real artists and real people on virtual backgrounds in video conference calls.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality is generally achieved with a head-mounted display and describes a fully immersive experience in a completely virtual world with no real objects. VR systems are using hardware, software, sensors and displays to create a computer-generated environment and allow the user to move in this world. With the help of controllers, it is also possible to move objects, arms or guns. Virtual Reality is currently mainly used for playing games but it also has a lot of potential for the health sector, the military, engineers and other industries.

„Virtual Reality refers to immersive, interactive, multi-sensory, viewer-centered, three-dimensional computer-generated environments and the combination of technologies required to build these environments.“

(Carolina Cruz-Neira, SIGGRAPH ’93 Course Notes „Virtual Reality Overview“)

This video shows a perfect example of a VR Game (Beat Saber) in an AV Video. The player is just able to see the boxes, scores and lightsabers during the playing experience but we can see an AV Video with the player in front of the virtual world.

Resources

Books

Virtual und Augmented Reality (VR/AR), Grundlagen und Methoden der Virtuellen und Augmentierten Realität from Ralf Dörner, Wolfgang Broll, Paul Grimm, Bernhard Jung, 2019

Medieninnovationen AR und VR, Erfolgsfaktoren für die Entwicklung von Experiences from Elle Langer, 2020

Web

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/introduction-to-virtual-reality/0/steps/98720

https://www.ionos.at/digitalguide/online-marketing/verkaufen-im-internet/extended-reality/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231514051_A_Taxonomy_of_Mixed_Reality_Visual_Displays

https://www.softwebsolutions.com/resources/best-practices-for-extended-reality.html

https://www.infopulse.com/blog/how-does-augmented-reality-affect-the-automotive-industry-today/

https://charliefink.medium.com/vr-ar-mr-defined-finally-ef255ba1002d

https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erklaert-was-ist-mixed-reality-definition-funktionen/

https://uxdesign.cc/augmented-reality-device-types-a7668b15bf7a

https://augray.com/blog/extended-reality-is-transforming-the-way-cars-are-bought-heres-how/

https://medium.com/@infopulseglobal_9037/augmented-reality-benefits-for-the-entire-automotive-value-chain-c2c7d61aa2e1

AR/VR/MR/XR
Extended Reality in Automotive
Mixed Reality (MR): Definition, Technik & Potenzial [Update 2021]
Extended Reality: Das sind die Realitäten der Zukunft
AR, VR, MR, XR, AV, … ?
Mixed Reality: The Future of Automotive?
What is XR?
Extended Reality Automotive: XR at the Forefront
by Tina Schart -

Treatment approaches in developmental Prosopagnosia (DP) – Part 3

Some of the types of therapies are the same or very similar to those used for people with AP (acquired Prosopagnosia). This is a listing of a few of the most common types of therapies:

  1. Comparison of photos of unknown and known faces
  2. Schematic faces, meaning faces reduced to lines
  3. Learning face-name associations
  4. Benton Face Recognition Task in where the participant should identify which face of a selection of faces best matches the target face
  5. Comparison of photos of unknown and known faces with and without hair
  6. Faces that look similar or the same should be matched into pairs
  7. Recognize and distinguish between distorted faces and normal ones
  8. Mooney Faces Task where the face consists only of black and white areas and must be recognized whether it is a face or not
  9. Participants’ attention is drawn to prominent facial features
  10. Two faces are shown and participants should determine age and gender
  11. Faces must be judged by emotions or expressions
  12. Jane Task with detection of spacing, feature, and contour changes 
Example of three therapy methods

To give a little more insight into a few of the many types of therapies, here a little more informationen about these methods and what goal should be achieved:
One type of compensatory therapy is to learn how to recognize a person’s face based on 5 characteristic features. In this case, the persons are known to the patient. These can be features such as the shape of the face, the width of the nostrils, shape of the eyebrows, freckles or wrinkles. In this way it can be achieved that certain features can be remembered better and therefore it is easier to recognize a person. This kind of therapy brings improvements especially in children.
An example of remedial treatment approaches is to divide the face into two areas – distance between eye and eyebrows and mouth and nose – and then categorize them. The goal, after some attempts, should be that people with DP can focus on several features at the same time, allowing them to process rather unfamiliar faces holistically in the brain.
Completely different therapeutic approaches have also been tried. For example, it has been found that intranasal inhalation of oxytocin can improve the processing of faces. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain that can influence the processing strategy in the brain. It was also discovered that much more time is spent looking at the eye region. It is believed that the eye region provides important information about who the other person is. This is therefore associated with prosopagnosics, as they spend little time looking at the eye area from the opposite. After giving this hormone and doing various tasks, better performance was observed in some people with DP.

Types of therapies that are most likely to be successful are those where familiar faces are to be learned and recognized using additional information.
The goal of these therapies is to eventually be able to better perceive and distinguish facial features, to reduce dependence on certain characteristics or accessories, and to be able to recognize familiar people more likely. However, because these therapies bring little or at least no long-term improvement, it is still advised to use alternative strategies, such as learning how the important people around them talk, walk, or what style of clothing they have. Probably the most important thing is that programs are adapted to the person’s problem, otherwise therapies have little to no success.

Sources

  1. Face Processing Improvements in Prosopagnosia: Successes and Failures over the last 50 years, Joe DeGutis, Christopher Chiu, Mallory E Grosso, Sarah Cohan (8.2014), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264940858_Face_Processing_Improvements_in_Prosopagnosia_Successes_and_Failures_over_the_last_50_years
  2. Developmental prosopagnosia: A case analysis and treatment study, Lyndsey Nickels, Pamela Joy (09.2006) http://www.researchgate.net/publication/47677051_Developmental_prosopagnosia_A_case_analysis_and_treatment_study
  3. Training of familiar face recognition and visual scan paths for faces in a child with congenital prosopagnosia, Laura Schmalzl, Romina Palermo, Melissa Jayne Green, Ruth Brunsdon (08.2008), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23187083_Training_of_familiar_face_recognition_and_visual_scan_paths_for_faces_in_a_child_with_congenital_prosopagnosia
by Güney Güner -

Meeting a UX/UI design lead (8)

  • UI and graphic designers were designing according to their usage habits because of the lacking UX training.
  • Designers build the website depending on their own age trends.
  • Firms prefers to consider who has the money and who spends it online
  • To learn something new is becoming hard for senior people
  • They are trying to learn the digital world. Although they have learnt social media such as facebook, they do not prefer to use e-commerce websites.
  • They prefer to use social media to keep pace with the changing world that they see on younger family members’ life.
  • Seniors prefer interfaces which do not have shortcuts, in contrast younger user of e-commerce websites prefer more convenient interfaces.
  • The firm’s target group is younger people according to marketing research that is why it does not have any approach for elderly
  • There are many middle-aged people who are using interfaces like elderly
  • One of the reasons why there are no approach for elderly is that the firm chose as a target group people who have the disposable income.

The reason behind the indirect and direct prejudice is that seniors lose trust to outwards because of various reasons. First of all a number of seniors think that there is no trustworthy medium when it comes to services in Turkey. Herein, the former UX chief of an e-commerce website states that the e-commerce based services providers does not have the intention or attempt to build a trust between seniors and Internet-based services. Seniors are not the target consumer for these e-commerce websites and they usually do not use these services, hence service providers do not work on this issue. On the other hand, to protect themselves from possible frauds who can trick seniors easily because of their lack of knowledge seniors choose to not trust and stay away from this digital world. The security of the Internet medium is another barrier for them. Tatnall and Lepa states that the older non-users thinks that the Internet is threatening, so they have concerns about security. 21% of over 65’s have concerns about security compared to 35% all adults (2003) So, this distrut is caused by the outward effects. The people that are not Internet users have the tendency to define this environment as very insecure and not private at all (Olphert & Damond & May, 2005). According to three division of adoption (see Figure 6), late-adopters are the likely to define the meaning of digital incompletely or incorrectly, because of the low usage rates this defining issue ads up to the “unknown threshold”. For seniors who have direct prejudice this unknown threshold is much difficult to overcome when compared to the seniors that wish to learn but have indirect prejudice. Lack of knowledge is the prime reason behind this situation. Those who actively reject use of the internet report a complete lack of interest, therefore it is one of the reasons that accounts for many older adults not using the internet. (Olphert, Damodaran & May, p.3, 2005)

Sources

Interview with a UI/UX lead

Tatnall, A., & Lepa, J. (2003, 02). The Internet, e-commerce and older people: An actor-network approach to researching reasons for adoption and use. ​Logistics Information Management, ​16(1), 56-63. doi:10.1108/09576050310453741

Olphert, C. W., Damodaran, L., & May, A. J. (2005). Towards digital inclusion – engaging older people in the ‘digital world’.

by Lisa Fresser -

UI of AR applications

When thinking about all the endless posibillities when creating a AR app, it is very important to keep the user experience in focus. Even if there are excellent functions and fun features developed within the app, it is the same than with common software or digital products: if it is not user friendly, nobody will use it.

Especially when the AR app is used for marketing purposes it is important to show the values of your company with the app. Giving the potential customers a app that is not stable and very complicated, useres will transfer this experience on the product and this can end bad.

This can be avoided by taking the app as a serious product and taking it through the whole process of app design. Starting with defining the users need and the goals which should be reached by the app. Who is the target group and who should use the product later? This group also be the users of the AR app.
Also when should the user use the app? In the shop or on the fly? At home in a confortable zone or in the train? How long does he has time at this point?

Next step would be to define the features which should be part of the app. Only the best features should be developed and rather limeted than overloaded.

A good example regarding this is the IKEA Place app. With just few very easy functions and interactions a well experience is gained.

AR is supposed to make our lifes easier and more fun. This should be kept in mind. To make sure the clients think the same than the developer of the app, multiple tests during the process of the app should be part of the development.

AR-Marketing: 7 Beispiele für Augmented Reality im Marketing
Augmented Reality UI Design: What, Why and How?

by Marie Kunzmann -

02 | Online meeting occasions & activities

Why do we meet and what do we do during the meeting? A subjective point of view.

In this entry I want to examine the reasons to meet online ( – I know that they are often very individual and personal, but I think that there are currently some common reasons). In order to clear my mind, I made (again) a mind-map to collect every common and possible reason to meet online and the activities during. The mind-map is showing my own current observations and experiences from a subjective point of view.

In the mind-map I made a separation (blue-coloured & blue background) between “official” and “private” meetings which could also be described as formal and informal meeting occasions. For me, a formal meeting is for example at the workplace, in education or anywhere else where you come together with anyone other than your friends and family like colleagues, acquaintances or even strangers. But why make this separation? Imagine going to such a ‘formal’  meeting: The place, the people, your feelings. Would you act like in a private meeting with your best friend? Probably not. Therefore I think it is crucial to think about the meeting occasion in order to come up with the best design solution for the associated interaction tool. Within this separation, a further gradation can be identified (blue-coloured). It shows the possible meeting categories such as lectures, workshops or events as well as a meeting with a group or 1:1 with only one friend. The activities (green-coloured) around them show that the separation into formal and informal meeting occasions is not enough and has to be more specific on a deeper level. All these activities include specific needs and require individual consideration in upcoming design solutions.

If you have a more objective look at those activities, you can recognise that they are mostly redundant. This basis could be helpful in terms of creating an interaction tool that meets the most common and being individually adjustable for specific needs later on. Let’s sum up the mind-map in a list to find the common activities.

Before the meeting (could also happen during the meeting)

  • Checking own video (background, angle, lightning)
  • Checking own audio input (quality, device)
  • Checking the screenshare possibilities
  • Checking the chat possibilities

While the meeting

  • Using own video (turn on&off, switch background, use filters)
  • Using own audio input (mute&unmute)
  • Receiving video of others (adjusting video interface, checking who’s speaking)
  • Checking audio of others (quality, volume)
  • Using the screenshare possibilities
  • Using the chat possibilities

Official meetings

  • Lecture, workshop & talks (mostly work meetings; either in groups or 1:1)
    • Audio & Video input of lecturer/speaker/moderator
    • Screensharing
    • Interactive work (polls, whiteboard)
    • Give feedback (reactions, questions)
    • Receive feedback (reactions, questions)
    • Discussions with all participants (via audio or chat)
  • Event
    • Audio & Video input of speaker/moderator
    • Livestream
    • Give feedback (reactions, questions)
    • Receive feedback (reactions, questions)

Private meetings

  • Group
    • Expressing emotions/reactions
    • Receiving emotions/reactions
    • Interactive tools (polls, games, plan activities)
    • Talking / discussions (simultaneously)
  • 1:1
    • Interactive tools (polls, games, plan activities)
    • Talking about personal issues (simultaneously)

All these activities have different reasons and goals within the digital interaction of web meetings. In order to reach a user friendly interaction tool it is necessary to provide the user an effective, efficient and satisfying way to reach their goals (referring to the Usability ISO Norm  92411). Because of the variety of the activity goals, I decided to group them in the following way:

The users input

  • Checking own video beforehand (background, angle, lightning)
  • Checking own audio (quality, device)
  • Using own video (turn on&off, switch background, use filters)
  • Using audio output (mute&unmute)
  • Screensharing/Livestream
  • Expressing feedback (emotions/reactions)
  • Insert a chat message

Active interaction between user and communication partner

  • Interactive tools (polls, games, plan activities)
  • Talking / discussions (simultaneously)

The output of the communication partner

  • Checking audio of others (quality, volume)
  • Receiving video  (adjusting video interface, checking who’s speaking)
  • Using audio input (adjust volume)
  • Screensharing/Livestream
  • Receive feedback (reactions, questions)
  • Receive chat messages

The list shows that most activities can be divided into input and output which suggests that simultaneous interactive communication options are somehow lacking. This matches my findings of last semester: Online meetings are mostly not simultaneously what causes communication issues. While reflecting my findings, I recognised that the division in input and output reminded me of the Shannon-Weaver communication model and the variations of it2. Therefore I would like to go on with a deeper look into communication models as well as use case scenarios and other usability methods in my next entries. As usual I’d love to hear about your experiences with online meetings. Feel free to write me 🙂

1 http://www.handbuch-usability.de/iso-9241.html (last review: 29.03.2021)
2 https://lehrbuch-psychologie.springer.com/sites/default/files/atoms/files/roehner-schuetz_probekapitel_2.pdf (last review: 29.03.2021)

by Güney Güner -

Persona Creation (7)

For setting up test series, some fictitious persons (personas) are developed, who are to represent the majority of the future actual users. The needs of these fictitious persons will be determined later on and run through the corresponding different user scenarios. Personas will not only help to fulfil the pure software-ergonomic requirements in the design process, but will also help to consider the desired user experience for the target group. 

This preparation will support the research process in figuring out possible solutions and guidelines according to personas’ needs. So far the interviews from last term provided me with a lot of information and basis for this process but also some pain points and needs.

“Understanding and communicating the needs and characteristics of the target users is crucial for the development and success of products and services, especially when designing for older adults constituting a highly heterogeneous target group.” (Buber et al., 2012)

Sources

Wöckl, Bernhard & Yildizoglu, Ulcay & Buber, Isabella & Diaz, Belinda & Kruijff, Ernst & Tscheligi, Manfred. (2012). Basic senior personas: a representative design tool covering the spectrum of European older adults. ASSETS’12 – Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. 25-32. 10.1145/2384916.2384922. 

González de Heredia, Arantxa & Justel, Dani & Iriarte, Ion & Lasa, Ganix. (2017). “Elderpersonas” adapting personas to understand the real needs of elderly people. 

by Tina Schart -

Treatment approaches in acquired Prosopagnosia (AP) – Part 2

There are several types of therapies or programs that are intended to achieve improvements. These types of therapies are used to learn how to work around all the deficits and focus on parts of the face. These are programs that I found during my research, but there are a lot more. So the selection is as follows:

  1. Comparison of photos of unknown and known faces
  2. Learning face-name associations
  3. Identifying which face of a selection of faces best matches the target face
  4. Distinguishing images of real or computer-generated people. 
  5. Electrical stimulations
  6. Semantic association chain with additional information about the shown faces
  7. Faces of targets as caricatured versions for recognition
  8. Participants’ attention is drawn to prominent facial features
  9. Only the eye area is shown and participants are asked to say what thoughts and feelings are shown
  10. Two faces are shown and participants should determine age and gender
  11. Faces that look similar or the same should be matched into pairs

According to several studies and a wide variety of tests, the most helpful programs for AP are those that direct attention to prominent facial features, in other words encoding strategies. Age as well as gender, origin or handedness have no effect on whether improvement is possible or not.

To give a little more insight into one of the many types of therapies, here is one of the methods. A computer game has been developed in which the participant must determine the faces with the greatest similarity to the target face. This game has 10 levels, which become increasingly difficult and challenging depending on the successful completion of the previous levels. Each level consists of searching for a target face from a selection of several faces. The faces searched for were presented frontal or slightly from the side. The further the level, the fewer similarities the faces had with the target face. However, in order to see the first successes, a lot of time must be taken into account. The picture below shows three levels of the game.

Computer game with 10 different difficulty levels, in which the participant must determine the faces with the greatest similarity to the target face.
This table shows a list of participants with AP in therapy programs who either noticed improvements as a result or not.

(Next up in Part 3: Treatment approaches in developmental Prosopagnosia)

Sources

  1. Face Processing Improvements in Prosopagnosia: Successes and Failures over the last 50 years, Joe DeGutis, Christopher Chiu, Mallory E Grosso, Sarah Cohan (8.2014), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264940858_Face_Processing_Improvements_in_Prosopagnosia_Successes_and_Failures_over_the_last_50_years
  2. Rehabilitation of face-processing skills in an adolescent with prosopagnosia: Evaluation of an online perceptual training programme, Sarah Bate, Rachel Bennetts, Joseph A. Mole, James A. Ainge, Nicola J. Gregory, Anna K. Bobak, Armanda Bussunt (04.11.2019), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343935303_Prosopagnosia