CCCN LAB | 9 Weeks | 2022
Improving Cognitive Test Experience for Elderly Users
Overview
Digital Cognitive App is a collection of mobile web-based game developed by CCCN Lab (Cognitive Clinical & Computational Neuroscience Lab - Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok), aiming to detect early signs dementia in elderly patients.
My role
I collaborated with researchers at CCCN Lab remotely to create and enhance existing game tutorials.
Low & high fidelity designs, Prototyping, Design validation
Goals & Users
This project is aimed at Thai elderly users age 60+. Aimed to teach users how each game works. So that game results can be accurately analysed to detect early signs of dementia.
Results & Impact
The tutorials have been developed and tested with the user group and has significantly higher rate of understanding comparing to the original tutorials.
Challenges
Design for Elderly
Elderly users (Age 60+) tend to have lower technology proficiency. Standard design patterns and copytexts can unintuitive for them. Each flow has to be tested thoroughly to ensure the usability.
Example: Users have trouble understanding symbol only button. By including a word in the button, usability is greatly increased.
Communication during COVID19 Pandemic
This is a fully remote project, real time observation of user testing is not possible. Only some video recordings and qualitative description of the testing is available.
Design for User with Signs of Dementia
Since this project deal with user who are likely to have dementia. Cognitive issues (Learning ability, Memory, Coordination, etc.) will also be apparent. This add another layer of complexity to the design as I will have to convey each information in the absolute most simplest way.
Language and Fonts
Compared to English, Thai language is generally wordy. Combined with larger fonts needed for elderly user, screen real estate become super tight.
A simple style guide is created for consistency in designs. Although the redesign is only for tutorial.
Learning from Users
Bite-sized Information
Tutorials are designed to have many screens. Trading off for shorter information per page to prevent information overload.
From user testing, this has proven to be more effective than having less screen with more information per page.
Learning by Doing
Users will be tasked with exercises after checkpoints during the tutorial to ensure their understanding. Positive reinforcement (praises) are given for correct actions.
Providing Feedback
Exercises also provide additional guidance/explanation when mistakes are made. This is what the original tutorials were missing, leaving user confuses on their mistakes.
Human touch
An instructor act as a guide throughout the tutorials, explaining the game rule in a friendly “human conversational” way. The idea is to simulate face to face teaching with CCCN members, which proves to be effective as praises feel more sincere and correction feel less harsh.
Future Retheming Opportunities
In my opinion, the original games lacked a story, feeling more like tests than actual games. To improve the experience, I rethemed the Go/No Go game as "Button Bash," retaining some components for engineering efficiency. I also introduced a story-driven tutorial approach. While untested, these updates should make the game more inviting compared to the original “test“ style.
Future Product Opportunities
I believe there is a great opportunity to this project outside of only detecting cognitive issues. This includes :
Customised excercises for user who diagnosed for dementia.
Recorded results and improvement trends for each cognitive aspect
Providing excercises to help slow down the effect of dementia
Sharing and comparing score with friends
I am super excited to have been a part of this project that take part in improving the life quality of many patients.