An user-centered approach to design smart systems for people with dementia

This study describes an User-Centered approach to design an User Interface (UI) to support daily activities of people with dementia. Such interface is the main hub of a home automation system able to monitor the house and reminds to the users some information when they approach the door to leave the home. In order to involve end users in UI evaluation at the end of the first stage of the design process, a specific experimental protocol, based on task analysis, structural interview, and behavioral observation, is defined. It allows to evaluate user-machine interaction considering aspects related to both adequacy of product feature and user's subjective opinion and behavior. A disposable high fidelity prototype of the UI is realized by using a touch screen tablet. Two tests, respectively dedicated to verify the adequacy of the icons and the understandability of the interface, are performed. A total of 20 subjects with different MMSE score are involved. Results show that people with low and medium dementia are able to understand and use the touch interface and provide some suggestion about how the GUI can be improved. Finally, some approaches to support the future development activities and the next usability tests are discussed