The Health & Inclusive Design (HID) squad designs interactive products and services that have an impact on people’s mental and physical health. The projects in the HID squad address a range of health-related topics, such as improving nutrition, physical activity, rehabilitation, dietary intake, and social and emotional well-being. Within this broad scope of topics, it is the mission of HID to design technologies to improve the quality of life and provide support in daily activities for people with specific vulnerabilities. For example, at-home or hospitalized patients, such as stroke survivors or cardiovascular disease patients; people with chronic diseases such as dementia; older adults, or at-risk young generations.
The Health and Inclusive Design squad focuses on applying state-of-the-art technology to health-related challenges in formal care contexts and in people’s homes. HID addresses challenges in uncovering the lived experiences of vulnerable users, designing for behavioral change, balancing personalization and feasibility in health interventions, and dealing with stakeholders in complex healthcare systems. HID projects run from conceptual designs to re-designing market-ready products in an iterative design process. These products and services focus on providing personalized care and tailored support to empower vulnerable users, rather than merely supporting existing care practices. Examples of state-of-the-art technologies are social robots to engage with people with dementia, chatbots to support the dietary intake of at-risk young generations, wearables to support rehabilitation, machine learning to customize healthcare services and processes, or new methods and tools to improve healthcare in multi-disciplinary social settings.
Societies globally are facing an increasing amount of health challenges, such as aging, chronic diseases, declining mental health, or over-burdened healthcare systems. For example, populations are aging globally, and research predicted that by 2050, one in six people will be over 65. In addition, there is an increasing number of people with chronic diseases, such as dementia and cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, there are increasing health problems for the general population resulting from poor lifestyle behavior, such as tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, and lack of physical activity. While the demand for care is increasing, existing healthcare systems are becoming overburdened and suffer from a lack of financial resources and trained healthcare professionals. Therefore, we need alternative strategies and solutions to address healthcare costs and reliance on informal care, such as focusing on prevention, promoting healthy lifestyles, or providing personalized and tailored care from extra-mural to intra-mural settings.
Students in the HID squad design for people in need of care with different degrees of vulnerability to promote inclusion, diversity, care, and well-being for all. Rather than viewing ‘vulnerable’ as a label, the HID squad approaches vulnerability as a dynamic state with different degrees, dependent on personality, cultural and social contexts, life situations, (dis)abilities, and personal well-being. HID approaches critical societal challenges in health and wellbeing from an inclusive design perspective by addressing the needs of the widest spectrum of possible users. Designing for all is not merely addressing the general population, as it implies including all specific user groups in the design process. Therefore, Health & Inclusive Design aims to include disadvantaged users in the design of digital and tangible technologies to overcome vulnerabilities, as creating a better world for people in the margin of society will benefit everyone. For example, at-home or hospitalized patients, such as stroke survivors or cardiovascular disease patients; people with chronic diseases such as dementia; older adults, or young generations with specific needs. Furthermore, the social context (e.g., family members, partners, parents, etc.) and relevant stakeholders (e.g., care workers, clinicians, policymakers, social workers, etc.) are included in the design process or research project as stakeholders with their own experience in supporting people with vulnerabilities in everyday life or practice.
