Experience Based Co-Design (EBCD) has become a popular way of using experience for healthcare service improvement. Despite its popularity, there are few comparative studies on the use of the approach evaluating its enablers and barriers. Here we analyse the barriers and enablers found in literature and of seven projects that used EBCD in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) and identify scenarios that may contribute to project success. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with EBCD project facilitators showed that the main project barriers were human and organizational barriers, and main enablers were the project facilitator role, the use of narratives, full organizational support, pre-intervention actions and the relationship between service and patients. We conclude that EBCD improvement projects are likely to be successful when key enablers are in place and that active management participation in the process facilitates implementing changes.

Inputting text is a fundamental task users perform in immersive virtual reality (VR) environments. This preliminary study quantifies the ‘gorilla arm’ effect regarding the required torque in the upper limb joints of an individual during a VR text entry task via ray-casting. This type of fatigue can be caused by the weight of the users’ arms, depending on the arm pose maintained during a task. We used motion capture technology to compare the required arm joints’ torque in two typical arm poses during VR text entry tasks. The results suggest that extending the arm higher and in front of the body towards the virtual keyboard causes about 3.77 times more net torque on the shoulder joint and 2.00 times more on the elbow joint, compared to when the arm is in a more relaxed and lowered position. These findings can support future VR text entry studies concerned with physical ergonomics.

Métodos para a avaliação da usabilidade no design de produtos

Editorial: Machine learning approaches to recognize human emotions