Designing a Multimodal Application for People with Brain Injuries to Manage Their Daily Routine: A User-Centered Approach

Abstract

Centro de Reabilitação Profissional de Gaia (CRPG) is a Portuguese public association that promotes the social, educational, occupational, and rehabilitation aspects of people with disabilities. The CRPG project presented in this paper is directly related to the Rehabilitation and reintegration of labor accidents and occupational diseases (RAC/LCA) victims. The solution presented in this paper heavily relied on user research of the institution’s procedures and the patients themselves. Their habits, goals, needs, and mental models allowed a better understanding of the heterogeneity of patient’s injuries, which usually affected memory, motion, and cognition in different ways and severity. The User Centered-Design methodological approach also encompasses a comparative analysis of mobile applications in Google Play and Apple App Store related to disabilities and features some main features identified by CRPG; interviews with patients and with CRPG stakeholders; personas and contextual scenarios development, requirements, and features definition, workflow, wireflows, lo and high fidelity prototype, formative evaluation with end users. The usability and accessibility test results suggest the viability and efficacy of multiple interaction modalities in improving the accessibility of the application, ensuring a broader reach to the CRPG community with future implications as good practices in the inclusiveness of applications in other contexts.