The Role of Human Computer Interaction in Consumer Health Applications: Current State, Challenges and Future

The role of usability and user-centered design for consumer and patient-facing health applications will become increasingly important as healthcare transforms from being primarily reactive and hospital or clinic centric, to being more proactive and patient centric with an increase of health interventions in the home. Patients, consumers and their families will be empowered with increasingly tailored and sophisticated just-in-time health information derived from sensors and algorithms that infer a user’s health state, goals and context. However, for these new technologies to be most effective, contributions from the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) will be critical. This chapter explores the challenges of designing for varying cultural backgrounds, levels of literacy and access issues. Appropriately tailored content and interfaces can dramatically improve the use and effectiveness of health technologies in improving knowledge and health outcomes. Additionally, we describe design considerations that anticipate varying form factors and display sizes, ranging from watch displays to tablets and large monitors in the home. Voice and gesture interactivity interface issues will become increasingly important. Finally, we will describe new approaches to participatory design, where users iteratively help test the usability of new devices in their home environments.