📜 Project Background

The CHI 2016 Student Design Challenge was built around the theme "Doing Good," inviting participants to design assistive technology for people with diverse needs and abilities. Our project focused on creating an inclusive design approach—either by making existing technology work for a broader audience or by exploring new opportunities with emerging tech. This project was our submission for the challenge and went on to win.

👨‍💼 My Role

We were a team of 5 people who worked on this project. In the different phases of the project, the ones that I was involved included the literature research in the field of disabilities and assistive technology, conducting contextual inquiry sessions followed by the affinity mapping of the observations, narrowing down to the problem statement and conceptualising the solution. Along with 1 other team mate, I was also involved in writing the research paper.

⌚️ About Saathi?

Saathi is a cost effective assistive technology solution for learning disabled which taps on the problem of lack of time perception by displaying time in the form of visuals, audio feedback and images from the daily life of children, the ones they are familiar with. It helps children to understand time as sequence of events rather than mere numbers.

📱Mobile App for Caretakers

The timeline or the order of the events is not the same for everyone. The daily events and its order are decided by parents (when children are at home) and by the teachers (when children are at school). Saathi also comes with a mobile application for the caretakers (parents and teachers) that is paired with the child's watch. The caretakers can add or edit events from the app, set voice reminders for the child and much more.

▶️ Product Video

💼 The Design Process

We worked on this project for nearly 8 months (Sept'15 - Apr'16) till the final presentation at CHI 2016, San Jose, California in May'16. The overall process of the project consisted of several steps thereby, tuning it in the form of final solution.

1. Literature review

We started by researching assistive technology through journals and studies, looking at solutions from companies like Microsoft, alternative keyboards, gaze interaction, and text-to-voice software. Watching user experience videos gave us a better understanding of how these technologies impact people’s lives.

2. Field visit and contextual inquiry

After completing the literature research on disabilities and assistive technologies, we needed to understand the behavior and needs of differently-abled people through direct interaction. For field research, we chose Shishu Sarothi—a nationally recognized center for rehabilitation and training in Guwahati, India. There, we observed children with Cerebral Palsy, Autism, ADHD, and other conditions in their natural environment and specialized spaces like the computer center, multisensory room, leisure learning classroom, and during activities designed specifically for them.

We held one-on-one sessions with special educators with over 30 years of experience. Through four field visits, we observed and documented children’s behavior during activities like playing, writing, and eating. Two additional visits focused on testing and gathering feedback on our proposed solution.

Moments captured at Shishu Sarothi when children were busy working in their natural environment. It was great to see the toys and the different assistive technologies.

3. Affinity analysis

Our observations from the field visits were put down on sticky notes to do the affinity analysis to identify the domain of further work.

Out of all the categories, Self-help was chosen as a domain to work forward because of its self sustaining nature, limited existing solutions and lot of scope. Also self-help includes assisting oneself in daily events and thus making the child more independent. The last 2 visits to Shishu Sarothi were completely aimed at knowing more about the domain of self-help and identifying the issues/problems which could be classified in the domain of self-help.

4. Narrowing down to the problem statement

Lack of time perception for learning disabled was chosen over others because the area has largely remained unexplored and also that it provides an opportunity to interlink one of the primary needs of the child and the teacher/guardian. The opportunity came from an observation where a kid was struggling with his watch to understand time when asked by his teacher what the time is. It was a great self-help opportunity if we could make the kid more independent and get a sense of control over their lives by helping him to perceive time in a much better way than just numbers.

5. Competitor analysis

Previous work in this field focuses on helping children with disabilities manage daily time but often requires guidance from specialists. Products like WatchMinder and Time Timer address time perception but lack real-life metaphors familiar to children. While iPrompt aids time perception, its mobile interface is complex for children with learning disabilities.

Owen & Wilson (2006) suggest focusing on the practical application of time in daily activities. Our solution, Saathi, is inspired by their research.

6. Persona

7. Conceptualization

Among the various ideas that were brainstormed, the idea of deriving the meaning of time from users own natural environment seemed the most opt. Tapping the familiarity of children with school activities and voices of guardians or special educators which they are comfortable with, relating with metaphors like flash cards were therefore the driving points of Saathi.

Visuals like an alarm clock to denote the morning, a school bus to denote the time for school, color filling up to denote the timer, children not only get a sense of time but also can relate to it in a better way than simple numeric or clock hand displays that we have in normal watches.

8. Prototyping

To validate our concept, we needed to conduct user testing and build a prototype. For this, we used a Philips Go Gear video player to display an animated sequence. We began designing the watch interface with low-fidelity wireframes, incorporating graphics from the pictorial flashcards used by children at school. To improve visibility, we chose high-contrast colors for the foreground and background. The video player was attached to a wristwatch band, and the animation played with transitions occurring over time.

9. User testing

Children in age group 9-14 years from two categories participated in the user testing. These categories were made on the basis of cognition level i.e. the mental age of the child.

The categories were mainly -

1. Mild (IQ level: 50-69) 5 participants

2. Moderate (IQ level: 35-49) 6 participants

Participants from the mild category fared better than most of the participants from moderate category. Saathi was also more targeted to the moderate category because in comparison to the mild category, these children were more dependent and the possibility of effective intervention was more.

Insights from User Testing

1. Circular transitions were easier to understand than linear ones.

2. While users grasped the graphics and could perceive time, special educators suggested using real pictures for better effectiveness.

3. A snooze button was preferred over multiple reminders, as frequent alerts disrupted the child’s focus during activities.

4. Using the voices of parents or teachers in the child’s native language was more effective.

10. Redesigning and getting deliverables ready

Refinements were made to the existing design based on user testing, caretakers and educators opinions. For the final deliverables of CHI 2016, we wrote a conference paper, made a video and poster explaining the solution and the process followed, also made a prototype of the watch interface for Moto 360 and a prototype of the app.

11. Future work

The special educators pointed at the need of gradual but essential learning of real world clocks (analog/digital), for which the idea of difficulty levels was proposed in watch.

🥇 Certification