Co-exploring Interaction Opportunities for Enabling Technologies for People with Rheumatic Disorder

This paper presents a case of co-design for people with rheumatic disorder to support the argument of opening up the design space to include interaction opportunities found in the physical world. The position argued for is that opening up the design space beyond common screen-based interfaces may contribute to the design of enabling technologies for people with rheumatic disorders by acknowledging their varying capabilities during both design and use. The presented results consist of one thematic analysis of home interviews and group discussions as well as one statistical analysis of the results from a formative evaluation of six conceptual prototypes developed along with the participants. The paper uses the combination of the thematic analysis, the six conceptual prototypes, and formative evaluation of performance scores and preference ratings to demonstrate how our co-design process involving users with rheumatic disorder in all phases allowed participants to discover both limitations and opportunities as they explored and co-designed alternative concepts.