Health Awareness

October 23

2009 Diyar Amin, Mo Amini Midterm

report

Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................3

2. Why Health Awareness System? .....................................................................................................3

2.1 Background ...............................................................................................................................3

2.2 Problem statement ...................................................................................................................4

2.3 Assumption ...............................................................................................................................4

2.4 Target group .............................................................................................................................4

2.5 The concept ..............................................................................................................................5

3. Data Gathering ................................................................................................................................5

3.1 interview ...................................................................................................................................6

3.2 observation ...............................................................................................................................6

4. The Prototype and Design ...............................................................................................................8

4.1 Our first and little Prototype......................................................................................................8

4.2 The Main screen ........................................................................................................................8

4.2.1. The Popeye character ........................................................................................................9

4.2.2 The Bluto character .......................................................................................................... 10

4.3 Scenarios ................................................................................................................................. 10

5. References .................................................................................................................................... 12

1. Introduction This report will provide a brief overview of the Health Awareness system, which will be

developed the use children. The mentioned system will be submitted as a project for

upcoming 'Children Museum' event in Oslo. In Children's Museum various project are

presented for children in order to make them understand their live conditions and different

aspects that are related to their small world. Through the Health Awareness system, children

will gain more knowledge about a healthy food life style and. All information will be

provided in an entertaining manner, through which children will have fun, while they are

reading the necessary information about having a healthy life style.

2. Why Health Awareness System?

2.1 Background Health of children has become more and more important to be monitored. Due to the

enhancement of the consumption societies and environmental pollution, children are one of

the most vulnerable groups, who are exposed to some certain degrees negative changes. The

consumption society produces more and more unhealthy food products, through which our

sugar intakes increases and the food we eat contains less vitamins and minerals. On the other

hand, in our daily life we are constantly exposed to the environmental pollutions and toxic

material through air, water, soil and food. In this content, we think that it is very essential to

make children aware of these unhealthy mentioned factors so that they can adopt healthy

lifestyles at a young age. However, this is not a simple task, since children love candy, in

contrary to that, vitamins and minerals in food often do not interest them. The result is an

increase in overweight problems among the children. The below provide graph indicates the

increasing overweight problem among children. By making an interactive Health Awareness

system that easily shows the benefits and negatives of different food types in a simple way,

we attempt to make children aware and motivate them to eat healthier.

2.2 Problem statement How can we produce an interactive Health Awareness system that easily engages children

into knowing more about health and unhealthy foods life style.

2.3 Assumption Bearing in mind the curiosity among the children, and their smart and quick reactions, we

assume that if we develop an interactive Health Awareness system that would teach the user

about health in a fun and interactive way, we would be able to make the user ( child ) aware of

healthy food life style. In order to do this, we assume that we have to use humor and funny

pictures to keep the child interested to follow various subjects in the Health Awareness

system. In this system, we will not use charts or graphs, since it will be difficult for a child to

grasp the content of graphs. Also, using graphs might distract or demotivate the child to

follow the system. Therefore, animation will play an important role in this system. We assume

that children have used computer before but is not required to know how to use computer. The

system will be simplified for the users in order to use it in a very easy and funny way.

2.4 Target group The target group for this interactive Health Awareness system is children between 8 – 12

years old. They will have to be able to read. The system is not language dependent since

changing the few words on the screen to the desired language is a simple task for the

programmer.

2.5 The concept The concept of the interactive Health Awareness system is a touch screen with speakers that

demonstrates a simple menu of what the child wants to do.

Choices:

1. Quick info This will be a quick way of knowing the benefits of the food. For example by typing in the

food. Or using the interactive screen to find the food. For example by touching “Vegetables”

then “Orange” then “Carrot”

This will display that carrots are good for you and contain vitamin A. And helps the immune

system.

2. Calories This will show how much energy the food item contains and if you should be careful of eating

too much of it.

3. Bad This will show a list of foods that may harm you. For example chocolate, soda or junk food

like mcdonalds. This function will show the information in a fun way, for example by

showing an animation of a tooth that is being drilled a hole in.

4. Good This will show a list of foods that are good for you. Like vegetables and fruits and what the

benefits are. This will also be in a fun animation way and not in a detailed way that describes

boring protein types.

3. Data Gathering For the purpose of developing the mentioned Health Awareness system for the children, the

first step will be gathering of necessary information and data around the topic. It is necessary

to gain information from the target group and their topic of interest before to start with

developing the mentioned system. Considering the fact, that the target group of this project,

children, they are a very specific and rather difficult target to deal with, since children are

unpredictable. Therefore, the below provided methods have been used so far for the purpose

of this project.

3.1 interview Before the development of the Health Awareness system, we will conduct various interviews

with children between 8-12 years old. The purpose of these interviews will be to understand

to what extent are these children aware of what they eat on daily bases. The questions will be

prepared in advance and the answers will be recorded in writing. Also, the interviewed

children will be asked about their food patron in order to understand to what extent do they

have a healthy food patron, and if not, how they would react through being exposed with this

Health Awareness system. However, their reaction will be described in 'Observation' phase of

this project.

3.2 observation For the purpose of this project, observation method will be also used in order first to orientate

the designer about the target groups' food habit and later on to observe the target groups'

reaction on the mentioned Health Awareness system. The observation method will be used in

two different phases of this project.

3.2.1 Pre- system development Observation Phase This observation phase will take place before the development of the Health Awareness

system. The reason for this is to orientate the designer about the food habit and the food

interest among the interviewed children. During this observation phase, the interviewed

children will be required to select only one picture among various pictures of different food

products. Each picture consists of different healthy and unhealthy food products, whereby

some pictures consists of more healthy products than the others. The aim of this request is to

find out to what extent do these children choose the combination of more healthy food than

combination of unhealthy food. Also, we ask each interviewed to give us a reason why s\he

has selected a certain picture.

example of food product picture for the purpose of the pre-development system Observation Phase

3.2.2 Post- system development Observation Phase This observation phase will take place during the exposing of the target group to the

developed Health Awareness system. The aim of this observation phase is to observe and

study the reaction of the target group on the developed system and whether the target group is

reacting positively on the system. In order to do that, various cameras will be installed in

order to observe the facial reaction of the target group once they are exposed to the Health

Awareness system. In addition to that, the system will also record which items or topics are

most selected by the children during their use of the mentioned system. This is important for

the further topic related studies on the child food behavior patrons. During this observation

phase, we hope also to find out how the target group would react on the information that

mention the negative effect of certain popular unhealthy product among the target groups, e.g.

candy or junk food.

4. The Prototype and Design

4.1 Our first and little Prototype This section will provide a very simple prototype, which will describe the most important

functionality in the Health awareness system. The low-fidelity prototyping will be used,

because of its simple function and it will have space for changes or adjustments to develop the

design further.

4.2 The Main screen After having discussed several options of how to present the mentioned Health awareness

system for the children, we came to the conclusion of using cartoon characters, it would be

then the most appropriate choice for the children. Due to the fact that children remember their

favorite cartoon characters, therefore, by using their already known cartoon personalities will

make it easier for the children to distinguish between good and bad health style. This means

that the positive cartoon personality will represent the good and healthy life style. In

meanwhile, the negative cartoon personality will represent the unhealthy life style. By doing

this, children will understand and recognize immediately which life style is the most healthy

one.

Moreover, by using the cartoon characteristics for this system and especially for the target

group (children), it will make this system more entertaining for the children in order to use the

system without being bored or distracted. As it is known that children are a very special target

group and they need special tools in order to gain their attention. In addition to this, using the

cartoon characteristics will motivate the children to follow the system in a attractive way,

where the children will have fun by following the Health awareness system.

The main screen will be chosen between two different cartoon characters. The first character

represents the healthy and strong personality, because this mentioned character has a healthy

life style. This personality has a healthy life style, because s\he is eating healthy food. In

contrary, the second cartoon character represents the unhealthy life style, since this

personality does not eat healthy food, whereby the person becomes unhealthy and weak.

4.2.1. The Popeye character

The Popeye character represents the healthy person. He is gaining strength by eating healthy

food (e.g spinach).

Unhealthy & weak Healthy & strong

4.2.2 The Bluto character

In contrary to Popeye, Bluto is known due to his negative attitude. He never beats Popeye,

because Bluto is not as strong and healthy as Popeye. In this system, Bluto represents the

unhealthy person.

4.3 Scenarios

4.3.1 Scenario 1 By touching Popeye on the screen, the healthy screen will show up with choices among

different food and drinking categories.

Through touching one of these mentioned categories, the healthy food system will appear. For

instance, through selecting the drinks bottom, all possible healthy drinks will appear in form

of pictures. Also, if the fruit or meet pictures are selected, then, the screen will provide all

possible healthy fruits and foods in form of pictures. Moreover, by demonstration of each

kind of healthy food category, a brief information will be provided about healthy product. For

example, if in the fruit category apple is chosen, then, there will be a brief information about

the benefit of apple and from which different vitamins does apple consist of. Also, there will

be information about what apple e.g. is good for.

4.3.2 Scenario 2 In case the Bluto cartoon character is selected, this will represent the unhealthy food style.

Through touching one of these pictures of the unhealthy category, the user will be able to see

all possible unhealthy food products.

5. References Interaction Design: beyond human-computer interaction http://www.id-book.com/slides_index.htm

Sugar Intake Hit All-time High in 1999 http://www.cspinet.org/new/sugar_limit.html

Obesity: in statistics http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7151813.stm

Kidshealth

http://kidshealth.org/kid/

The medical news

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20090923/HealthRock-to-promote-health-education.aspx

HealthMad

http://healthmad.com/nutrition/the-health-benefits-of-carrots/