Happje
Happje
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How can we stimulate collaborative cooking for people with dementia?
How can we stimulate collaborative cooking for people with dementia?
2021: 6 months
Graduation project of Msc Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology
Activities: interviews, iterative prototyping, and evaluation.
Published in DementiaLab 2022:
Ruitenburg, Y., Brankaert, R., Houben, M., Lee, M., & Pasman, G. (2023, April). Happje: Stimulating Collaborative Cooking for People with Dementia. In Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-9). https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3585653Published as a Late Breaking Work at CHI 2023:
Ruitenburg, Y., Pasman, G., & Brankaert, R. (2022, September). One Step at a Time: Evaluation of a Step-By-Step Recipe Tool Designed for People with Dementia. In Dementia Lab Conference (pp. 77-92). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14466-0_7
Context
Context
People with dementia may lose the ability to cook because they struggle with planning, understanding, and remembering the cooking steps. However, the execution of the steps is not often an issue and step-by-step guidance can help people with dementia perform tasks as it takes the challenges of planning and ordering the steps out of their hands. While previous studies have focused on such step-by-step guidance, these have often used innovative technologies that are often too complicated to learn and set up for people with dementia. We designed and evaluated an intuitive, non-intimidating step-by-step recipe tool for people with dementia called "Happje" ("bite" in Dutch). The tool is designed for collaboration to stimulate socialisation between people with dementia or with a formal or informal caregiver.
Design Process
Design Process
"Happje" was designed through an iterative design process in which 13 prototype iterations were built and evaluated in the homes and meeting centres of people with dementia. People with dementia and their caregivers were consulted at each iteration to ensure the designed tool addressed the participants' needs, values, abilities, and everyday context. The process resulted in a paper step-by-step recipe tool that provides non-intimidating instructions to those with dementia, which they can then execute together with others with dementia or their formal or informal caregiver. Happje is presented on paper (instead of on a digital interface), as all previous iterative paper prototypes were easy to use and non-intimidating for the elderly participants. Each step only includes one task and is supported by an icon to ensure it is easily understood. Happje also presents multiple steps on a single page to ensure users can keep an overview of the entire sequence of tasks. People with dementia may also forget previously completed actions due to short-term memory deficits, so Happje includes a magnetic pawn to mark the step they are currently working on. Caregivers can also look at the pawn to keep track of the progress. The application of Happje also supports informal caregivers in creating personalised recipes so they can cook their favourite recipes and make the recipes suitable for their cognitive needs at that moment in time.
For more information about the design process, check out our CHI Late Breaking Work: https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3585653
Evaluation
Evaluation
The design was evaluated in situ, with 36 individuals at varying stages of dementia. Participants were instructed to cook a dish using the recipe tool and reflect on its usability. The step-by-step approach of the tool appeared highly suitable for people with dementia, and the added visuals helped them understand the recipe. The level of initiative shown by the participants with dementia seemed to depend on the amount of trust shown by the caregiver. We found collaboration between participants during cooking, as facilitated by the tool, was enjoyable and highly suited for both at-home and meeting centre settings.
For more information about the evaluation, check out our DementiaLab paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14466-0_7
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