Handheld computer for personal health advice

Abstract

The overall objectives of the project were to conceive, design, implement and evaluate a portable personal health advisor. The system would integrate data from various sources and handheld computers on a real-time basis to provide "advice" (intelligent and knowledge) anytime and anywhere so that a consumer can take practical and immediate actions to maximize their vitality to enjoy life. The conception phase included the identification of technologies and approach to deliver personal and real-time advice at points of decision. Using this knowledge, I developed a prototype in the context of a person shopping in a pharmacy or market to ensure that foods, medicines or other products do not pose hazards relative to that person's known medical condition. In order to implement a real-life and thus estimate the usability and the user's perception of the system, we chose to focus on Type II diabetics in this first phase. A field test was run at a Research Laboratory of the major project sponsor, Procter & Gamble. The experiment confirmed the great appeal of decision-aiding system for people who have to manage strict or complex diet. It also underlined its design challenges, because even an ubiquitous device that provides "perfect advice" would promote a long-term behavior change only if human factor issues related to trust, privacy and user perception are carefully analyzed. It finally revealed the need for a trusted infrastructure, and some of the difficulties to overcome in order to implement the system in a large scale.