My Hungry Buddy helps people stay healthy

Post ten

By Marie Good

Speaking with a peer member about my proposition allowed me to gain an idea into how she understood my proposition and feedback was received into the ways she felt the proposition could be improved to increase it’s chances of success. Her feedback allowed me to reconsider, and consequently, completely redesign my proposition, as she, as well as my tutor bought up some interesting points that I had overlooked or not put too much thought into. These were the following:

• What would the main influence or take home value be
• Be more specific about the target audience or it may be hard to influence everyone
• How could you create a more obvious motivation to get people involved
• How could you create surprise in the minds of the audience to influence a bigger impact
• Could this turn into a game somehow

Taking this feedback into consideration lead me to completely scrap my original idea and come up with another, that had been highly influenced by my earlier research. I also realised this idea was, in reality, less of a design solution to educate and more of an event for entertainment. The line I wanted to draw was somewhere in between this crossover.

As mentioned before, the key insight from my research that assisted me to create this new design proposition came from an interview with one of my classmates who disclosed thoughts on the stereotype of being unhealthy as someone who is overweight. I found this interesting at the time because of existing ideas I had about metabolic and genetic differences affecting the breakdown, distribution and storage of energy cells, thus affecting the visual side effects of consumable intakes. This insight prompted me to ask myself the question, what if the elements affecting weight gain were the same for everyone and solely determined by the nutritional breakdown of consumables placed into the body? I also drew on research surrounding the power of edutainment; which is education taught through the emergence of technology, particularly games such as phone applications or game consoles. Here, I was able to create the basis for my game proposition and My Hungry Buddy was born.

Revised proposition

My hungry buddy is a service design and part generative system that aims to educate people on their food choices in an attempt that the consequences of physical weight gain or loss and potential future health problems may influence the individual to make wiser food choices.

My Hungry Buddy provides a personal logging system and education platform on eating behaviours and encourages people to make sensible nutritional choices. The game works firstly by the user creating a customised avatar and profile of themselves, including height, weight, age, body type (if known), and basic activity level. The game then creates their character and uses this information to calculate intake requirements and basic vitamin requirements. The user then logs their food intake by meals, like in the existing app, My Fitness Pal and this information is then placed against the intake requirements and influences the user’s avatar by either placing weight on or off the character. It also analyses the meal for nutritional or vitamin imbalances and warns the user of potential future health complications if this type of eating persists.

In addition, the user has the opportunity to scan barcodes while shopping and place these into their intake to see if a particular food is healthy or not healthy. They have the opportunity to store this information of items in a catalogue called a ‘food pantry’ for future, quick go to uses and can also share this information on a forum platform provided, to connect with other users.

My Hungry Buddy hopes to educate solely on nutritional requirements and therefore does not take fitness into account at this stage of the proposition process, however there is potential to include this in the future. Edutainment in this regards, is a private journey by participants that can have the power to promote healthy choices and educate on healthy living.

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The five W’s and unlimited potential

Post nine: Visual documentation of the brainstorming session

By Marie Good

Before I could work on developing a design proposal or situating my design statement in a decisive way, it was essential for me to firstly understand all the elements of my target audience involved. The following questions had to be asked, with my responses included below.

WHO

Consumers; the general public; particularly people with little knowledge of the foods they consume or people with a medium / strong interest, yet not qualified as a reliable source of information. It also affects the manufacturers and producers of foods.

WHAT

There is a general lack of awareness or desire to be aware because of the complexity and boring structure of current information. Also potentially a lack of accessibility to information or healthy options.

WHERE

Every time a consumer purchases or consumers. In shopping malls, supermarkets, cafes, their own kitchen etc.

WHEN

When shopping, when hungry, when preparing food.

WHY

Nutritional information currently is not desirable to read. People would rather read an unreliable blog post or watch a reality cooking show than learn the fundamental chemistry of profile of nutrition.

After this, I was able to work on creating a design statement which I discussed with my peers. This discussion proved very helpful for myself, in understanding if what I was investigating made sense to others, instead of only myself. They even informed me of some areas I could look for information on my topic.

Next I took all the suggestions and feedback I had received and started brainstorming potential design solutions. The important part here was to think as big as I could and create ideas not limited to my own available resources for reality but the skills and funds featuring a more collaborative approach. I asked myself, if my own funding and skills were limitless, what could I achieve to create change. This thinking pattern created some very far-fetched, yet potentially extremely effective design solutions, as well as some more grounded and realistic ideas. In order to create some structure out of my chaotic jhand generated storm, I recreated this by computer intervention. The end map is pictured here below.

This process of collaboration was highly effective in this instance as the reactions of others and their feedback, enabled me to understand if my thinking made sense or was of value to those other than myself. Their suggestions for further research as well, allowed me to uncover more sources of information that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

You can’t handle the truth, but how about a pop up?

Post eight

By Marie Good

Collaborative group work has played an essential role in the discovery and exploration of my understanding into the issue that is obesity and healthy living. It has allowed for an accepting space where a knowledge bank was allowed to be created based on different experiences, insights and conducted research points that group members had acquired. During a recent brainstorming session, this and also the ability to communicate ideas verbally helped me to discover possibilities and to create a proposal.

 

The possibilities discovered included:

• Food allergies, particularly in response to food additives and man made chemicals, are not being highlighted as an important consideration in the design spaces and marketing environments products exist in.
• Edutainment has an important role to play in the future of humanity and how we relate to and perceive the world and who we are in it.
• People are generally uninterested in taking the time to discover how food properties and their chemical make up can influence bodies in particular ways.
• There is a general lack of understanding on where to seek qualified, experienced and reliable advice for the issues of healthy living and obesity.
• Our information receptors are at over capacity when it comes to ‘fad diets’ and fad ways of conducting healthy living, that we become overwhelmed and undereducated about real issues.

Through my possibilities I was able to create a problem statement for further design responses to be investigated as a solution to influence change.

Problem Statement

Design a way of assisting people in understanding and building awareness about the nutritional breakdowns of consumables.

Proposal

I have realised the main issue within obesity and healthy living appears to be a lack of education and a lack of attitude to learn, because of an oversaturation of inaccurate information and a tried and tired nutritional panel that is unexciting and inefficient to read.

I aim to create a service design, which will essentially act off the back of the success of pop up restaurants and food trucks. I propose to create a travelling restaurant space that serves food and drink products in response to where the patron is sitting in that restaurant space. The restaurant space will be separated through aesthetic style based on degrees of nutrition and the balance of a meal, ranging from very bad to very good. In order to gather an interest from the general public in such an event, I propose working with and gaining the participation of well known health, fitness and nutrition actors and developing a three phase campaign; 1 – tease. 2 – excite. 3 – sustain. The results themselves, will educate participants to develop an awareness and conscious attitude towards the nutritional value of their food.

‘Big now, dead later,’ – Steroids

Post 7: Issue mapping

By Marie Good

Steroids by Magin 2016

Controversy: noun; a lot of disagreement or argument about something, usually because it affects or is important to many people (Cambridge dictionary 2016).

When it comes to living and the issues that affect us all, we are placed into a position of a passive or aggressive stance. As humans, we feel strongly about subjects such as obesity and healthy living and because of this, create controversy over and within many areas surrounding it.

Recently during a class exercise, I had the opportunity to map out actors of controversy with regards to this topic and zone in on a particular area of investigation. My group and I decided to focus on the area of performance enhancement supplements, recognising it within our first map of controversies, as a subject each group member had some knowledge about but thought might be interesting to explore. We broke this off onto one known performance enhancing drug, steroids, to investigate further in detail.

Steroid are by nature, a performance-enhancing drug, particularly found in the areas of, but not limited to, bodybuilding, strength conditioning, endurance sports and performance athletes.

We recognised six main categories we could examine closer to develop a detailed insight into the actors involved in this controversial subject, being: politics, associates, value alignments, capabilities, hierarchies, issues and challenges. From here, it was essential and crucial towards our process to involve each member’s thoughts and ideas as we all had different knowledge levels, experiences and therefore insights into steroid actors.

On looking over our end map and findings, the main issue with steroid use is formed on the basis of drug stability in regards to quality and sustainability of the individual’s life. I can identify a possibility that in order to change the minds of individuals in this area, education, potentially in the form of a health and fitness, virtual reality edutainment app could be developed or other means of education in perceiving our future selves with regards to now. This unfortunately seems to be a contradictory area within the minds of young people particularly, where by the mentality they have is focused on the idea of fun now, responsibilities later. This way of living is not sustainable to themselves, their friends and families or the communities around them.

 

Reference list

Cambridge dictionary, 2016, Controversy, date viewed 1 September 2016, < http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/controversy &gt;.

Magin, R. 2016, steroids, date viewed 1 September 2016, < http://ryanmagin.com/go/new-steroid-poormans-nobs/ >.

Twittersphere suggests fast food can actually make us healthy

Fast food, fast change by Lea Peck 2015

Post 6: Data scraping

By Marie Good

Twitter is a social media platform where users can subscribe (or follow) other users to stay connected with their updates and posts. In order to access most functions, such as posting you, the user must have an active account and the technology to connect via app or an Internet platform. One of the significant and most commonly used features is posting written updates on your thoughts or activities, which creates a communicative and relaxed tone of conversation, unless, of course, controversial subjects are the targets of play. In this case people can use freedom of expression and freedom of speech to ‘vent’ their opinions and affirm their identity in a way.

One feature in particular that I have utilised, as a tool to analyse hashtagged material with specific keywords relating to obesity and healthy living is the advanced search function. Using Google Spreadsheets and a twitter scraper application, I decided it would be interesting to look for the usage of two words – preservatives and organic. These two terms relate strongly to my desired area of investigation and provided some interesting results for analysis.

Through my analysis, three main take away points became obvious.

1. Organic food is expensive, unaffordable for the majority of people and a heavily marketed advertising term.
2. Excitement for fast food chains that switch to products that don’t use preservatives is rising.
3. Many of those tweeting about switching to organic, or eating foods without preservatives are health professionals or have some sort of education/work interest in the area

After sorting through only a small section of the responses received, it became significant to note that the use of ‘organic’ was predominantly part of advertisements for products and services, instead of use in general conversation. For example, these tweets below display how marketing has latched onto the power of a niche market to influence consumers on a broader spectrum.

L: Skin loving luxury by Organicfelicia 2016. R: Organic matcha green tea by Ecomugsstore 2016.

Not only does it appear that this is the case but also that due to this, many people associate expense and affordability concerns with organic products. One tweet displayed below, details the anguish and disgust of high prices on organic produce.

Organic is so expensive by Mamakaexo 2016

LOL do you even know what minimum wage is by Ayershole 2016

On the other hand, we see joy and excitement about a recent decision by McDonald’s Canada to adopt preservative free methods of cooking within their chicken nugget range. This tweet was retweeted numerously and recurred throughout my search hundreds of times. This shows how people tend to accept their love of fast foods, while also admitting, although not directly, of knowledge about the negative health properties of chicken nuggets. This idea made me reflect of my interview conducted recently where my interviewee suggested fast food establishments need to adopt small changes in order to influence a healthier and more sustainable future.

Mc_D Canada preservative free by 20YS 2016

The last area I found provoking in my search was not what, but who were discussing these keywords in their tweets. It appeared the majority of tweeters had dealt directly or do deal directly with the health industry, as businesses, qualified health, fitness or nutrition personally or/and the more general health and fitness advocates. This almost seems to suggest that those willing to use these terms essentially need to have some interest or stake in the obesity and healthy living area. This then presented me with an issue for further investigation.

I believe here, the challenge for design in this area lies in its ability to influence the general public who are not necessarily interested in the chemical composition of foods of product. How can design create change, or increase the accessibility of information so that is it placed in an easy to understand format that the user wants to access. Potentially through edutainment technologies or awareness campaigns supported by major fast food organisations or product manufacture and distribution houses. Through this means, the information is placed in a house that is already furnished with a collective and consistent audience who, according to my data scrape findings, do actually care about what they put into their body when it is brought to their attention that a positive change has been made.

Reference list

Ayershole, 2016, ‘LOL do you even know what minimum wage is,’ 4 September, twitter post, date viewed 4 September 2016, < https://twitter.com/Ayershole/status/770449656568426497 &gt;.

Ecomugsstore, 2016, ‘Organic matcha green tea,’ 4 September, twitter post, date viewed 4 September 2016, < https://twitter.com/EcoMugsStore/status/772580048444329984 &gt;.

Mamakaexo, 2016, ‘Organic is so expensive,’ 4 September, twitter post, date viewed 4 September 2016, < https://twitter.com/mamakaexo/status/770398230865731584 &gt;.

Organicfelicia, 2016, ‘skin loving luxury,’ 4 September, twitter post, date viewed 4 September 2016, < https://twitter.com/flwrgardengifts/status/772579947802046464 &gt;.

Peck, L. 2015, Fast food, fast change, YouTube, date accessed 3 September 2016, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCFBEIXC0w >.

20YS, 2016, ‘Mc_D Canada preservative free,’ 4 September, date viewed 4 September 2016, < https://twitter.com/20YS/status/772172835406110720 &gt;.

If you’re holding the gun, who is pressing the trigger?

Post three

By Marie Good

When considering the stakeholders of the issue of obesity and healthy living, you better clear your schedule for the next hour, make a cup of tea and have several large pieces of paper on standby to record all the major participants you can think of. The world of health is the world we live in every day and are unable to simply take a holiday from. As humans it is within us and around us every moment of our lives, which is precisely why everybody and everything we are, plays a part in how it functions in the bigger picture.

During a class exercise recently, I was required to do just that (minus the cup of tea, sadly). With my group we wrote down as many stakeholders as we could and positioned them in line of most important and influential to least. Gaining this overview we uncovered some insightful and surprising positioning within the list. Some stakeholders we had thought would be big players in the issue, when compared to others, were actually less important than those we initially considered less important. For example, economic position was deemed of higher influence than that of social media in its line of influence. This insight lead me to the idea that healthy living may just be a luxury for those with a socio-economic affordability for it, leaving the poorer to become poorer and unhealthier.

Furthering on in class we decided to plot out the relationships and connections between stakeholders which formed an intense web of lines, communicating how complex this issue is and how many influences have other influences via other stakeholders.

On leaving my class I decided to pursue this map and create my own, with particular focus on four crucial areas to draw connection between the groups and view any overlaps in influence. After listing initial stakeholders for the four main groups; emotional, medical, humans and environmental, I decided to pick an important word from each group and link it up with words from alternate groups. This mapping exercise further displays the complexity of the issue. I was interested to see though, how substantial the human and emotional group was in connection and influence with other stakeholders.

During a following class a week later, another mapping exercise was conducted but this time it was not concerning stakeholders only, but any word that could be related or influential to my topic. My group decided to divide our answers into five categories; education, expectation, support, role models and social to address the question of who and how these elements are formed. We also made subcategories listing who would use those words in everyday conversations. From this exercise I drew the conclusion of support being a crucial element to the recovery of a healthy lifestyle, however, not a readily available offering in today’s society.

 

Image archive

These 7 mobile apps will help you find GMO and additive-free foods by Healthy Holistic Living, 2016

This image displays an emergence between the food and produce market and portable technology. It is a representation of how two unlikely elements can be paired through their connecting feature of data to create a further efficient source of information for tracking, keepsake or other personal reasons. Unlike written understandings of this, the picture allows us to see and interpret how the technology is used in the real world.

 

Farmacy by Piraro, 2011

A comic styled image with a humorous and witty catch, this image draws the audience in by utilising their knowledge of generalised pharmacy perception, as a place of medication and healthy influence and highlights the importance of eating healthy regularly in keeping the body in a positive state. The use of humour furthers the audience’s connection with the image, unlike traditional written statements and explanations.

 

5 ways to get fit and healthy by Women of Substance, 2015

A powerful image displaying a female actor kicking a mountain of junk food. The food has been made bigger than her, to symbolise how large the struggle is to rid our lives of such things. Images like the one above plant an idea into the minds of the audience quite quickly and efficiently, without the use of words.

Microbiome by NaturalHealth365, 2016

Unless you’re a doctor or studying the human biome, our internal structures are not something we like or have to think about much. This image almost acts as an infographic or informative insight into our internal gut system and how gut inflammations are caused through our biome. It assists our understanding in guiding our minds creativity towards imagining this as explained in words.

 

How your gut flora prevents you from getting fat and sick by Natural Mentor, 2015

Another powerful image, quite scientific in nature, suggesting humans are predominantly created from DNA and our genetics. This emphasis placed on merging the two highly recognisable forms is effective and easy to understand.

 

Magical ways to control your health and fitness by GagaTrends, 2015

This image is actually used as a feature image for a previous blog post of mine on the same topic, post one. In this blog post I gave an overarching view of obesity and healthy living subjects presented in the Australian press. The reason behind this image choice is because the items presented in the image are associated with our first thoughts of the term healthy living.

 

10 facts about obesity, by eNews channel Africa, 2014

Another image I have used as a feature image displays an overweight child, positioned next to a pizza box and playing video games. This, unfortunately is one of the stereotypes younger generations of people have today when the term ‘gamer’ or ‘overweight’ are used. It’s effective in conveying an emotive and therefore engaging and successful image.

 

Augmented reality fitness games coming to tablets and phones by TechRadar, 2013

The emergence of technology and physical activity has become an idea that seems to be accelerating at speed into shaping the future. This image is an example of augmented reality doing just this and encouraging people to get off their couches while gaming, instead of sitting, as pictured in the image above.

 

Food additives and behaviours by Yummy Tuckers, 2014

The image above displays a quite literal representation of the chemicals and additives being placed into a common household breakfast item. It is effective in doing so as these chemicals are usually hidden quite well (even on the information and ingredient panel) and the general consumer is not consciously recognising they are in what they are eating.

Doesn’t work, does it? by Kevin Prezzi, 2016

It’s no secret that our society is over medicated and under enthused about life in general. This image heavily communicates how reliant humans, as a collective, are on the pharmaceutical market. It suggests we are full yet still consuming medications, toxins and drugs ‘off a silver spoon,’ as the saying goes.

 

Reference list

Augmented reality fitness games coming to tablets and phones, 2013, TechRadar, date viewed 19 August 2016, < http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/augmented-reality-fitness-games-coming-to-tablets-and-phones-1188130 >.

Doesn’t work, does it, 2016, Kevin Prezzi, date viewed 20 August 2016, < http://www.kevinpezzi.com/blog/steve-jobs_mel-gibson_cancer_appearance.php >.

Food aditives and behaviours, 2014, Yummy Tuckers, date viewed 20 August 2016, < http://www.yummytuckers.com.au/food-additives-and-behavior/ >.

How your gut flora prevents you from getting fat and sick, 2015, Natural Mentor, date viewed 19 August 2016, < http://naturalmentor.com/how-your-gut-flora-prevents-you-from-getting-fat-and-sick/ >.

Magical ways to control your health and fitness, 2015, GaGaTrends,  date viewed 20 August 2016, < http://www.gagatrends.com/magical-ways-to-control-your-health-and-fitness/ >.

Microbiome, 2016, NaturalHealth365, date viewed 20 August 2016, < http://www.naturalhealth365.com/microbiome-gut-inflammation-1857.html >.

Piraro, D. 2011, ‘Farmacy,’ Bizarro, date viewed 25 August 2015, < http://pioneersettler.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/farmacy.jpg >

These 7 mobile apps will help you find GMO and additive-free foods, 2016, Healthy Holistic Living,  date viewed 22 August 2016, < http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/these-7-mobile-apps-will-help-you-find-gmo-and-additive-free-foods.html >

5 ways to get healthy, 2015.,  Women of substance, date viewed 22 August 2016, < http://www.womanofstyleandsubstance.com/5-ways-to-get-fit-and-healthy/ >.

10 facts about obesity, 2014, eNews channel Africa, date viewed 21 August 2016, < https://www.enca.com/10-facts-about-obesity >.

Fast food and fast judgement; an interview

Fast food and fast judgement by Epoch Times, 2015

Post five

By Marie Good

Recently I was able to conduct an interview with a class peer of mine who provided me with some interesting insights into the way she views Australia’s health an obesity status. My interviewee is from China and due to this, her knowledge of Australia’s status was based primarily on her relation and experience with an Asian lifestyle. At the end of the interview I was interested in her personal position in regards to her food intake, due to her knowledge and access to a culturally different society than myself.

We firstly discussed her view on Australia’s health and obesity status in general which she considered was quite healthy because of it’s access to organic produce and ability to produce and market it’s own, home-grown food. However, she thought there might be a problem in regards to our junk food saturated market. On pushing this further it was revealed the real reason she developed these views is because of the amount of red meat and fatty, cholesterol contributing processed foods Australia consumes compared Asia. She also touched on the increasing amount of alternate, labelled lifestyles popping up vigorously of modern times such as veganism and vegetarian, continuing to state, ‘for me, I am from Asia and people there like to eat more vegetables, grains and not so much red meat. As a result I think this is reflected in their weight.’

Her answer was very interesting and led me into asking what this statement meant for her stereotype of an unhealthy person, which she responded to as someone who is fat. I consider this quite an interesting take on society’s perception of what it means to be unhealthy. For example, when it comes to matters of the metabolism, which is the major consideration factor for the influence of fat distribution in our human biology, many people think slim people with a lower body mass index (BMI) are at less risk of developing health complications. This is a debatable topic in regards to body types, genetics and our body’s individuality in the matter.

We moved onto the area of what need to be changed in order to alter the way Australia is heading with fast food markets on the rise. My interviewee answered that current fast food companies need to consider making the change to using healthier ingredients. I suggested the idea of healthy fast food chains as an option to which she did not see much success in, commenting that, ‘such a fast change would not be successful, this is why we should try implementing small changes to the system and hope for the best.’

Throughout our discussion it was evident my interviewee’s knowledge of the obesity and healthy living topic was based on her own personal experiences. It made me view each individual as having almost an umbrella of knowledge, mostly only extending towards what they have personally accepted within their life circumstances.

I followed the interview by assigning a research probe activity to my interviewee with the following tasks:

1. Keep a food diary for a day and record what you eat.
2. Draw or write a list of healthy and unhealthy foods and write why you think this way.

The results from this probe task displayed a fairly low calorie yet heavily processed diet, with much noodles and low GI foods, however medium amounts of protein and fats to promote feelings on content and fullness. The list generated for both healthy and unhealthy foods mainly showed my interviewees knowledge of ‘healthy’ as being associated with vitamins and energy production whereas unhealthy was associated with traditional Chinese thoughts, particularly on cold drinks being bad for women, fast food, high amounts of oils and a lack of fresh quality. One area of insight from this probe task was seeing ‘cake’ and rice listed under healthy due to its ability to create energy. This clashes with ideas I hold towards cake and rice, as nutritionally, this energy is sourced from insulin release associated with large amounts of high GI carbohydrates (such as sugar, predominantly). It’s further pondered my thinking into why individuals view healthy lifestyles the way they do, the reasons behind it and the associations they make.

Five key points from both of these exercises to summarise my findings are:

• Australia has a high junk food saturated market with too much heavy meat and not enough vegetables, unlike those of Asian countries
• Most people perceive being unhealthy as someone who is overweight
• In order to change the decline of Australia’s health and obesity status, fast food companies should undertake slow change to become more healthy and responsible towards their part in the problem.
• Individuals have almost an umbrella of knowledge, mostly only extending towards what they have personally accepted or experienced within their life circumstances
• Many people go by what others have told them are healthy and unhealthy foods but don’t go further into why this may be the case or how they have been classified in that way

 

Reference list

Epoch Times, 2015, The Western Diet Is So Unhealthy, It’s Affecting Our Eyes, Epoch Times, date viewed 27 August 2016, <http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1365599-the-western-diet-is-so-unhealthy-its-affecting-our-eyes/ >.

 Lam, Y., Y. 2016, pers. comm., 16 August.

Augmented reality to the rescue

Augmented reality by Dezeen 2013

Post four

By Marie Good

 

When we see a problem within our community or the lives of others, it’s easy to feel helpless for a moment. We consider the situation, how small we are in comparison to the world and simply turn a blind eye when the realisation is too much and our own micro lives start flooding back into centre stage. It takes a different kind of attitude to evoke change. Firstly, the individual or group must identify a who and how for their why. Over the last few weeks I have been uncovering insights into the injustices and inequities towards healthy living attitudes. In particular I have discovered the emergence of augmented reality and education systems to change worldly perceptions and attitudes towards healthy living.

Augmented reality (AR) is a term created by Professor Tom Caudell in 1990 (Lass 2015) to define a recreation of reality that has been altered with overlaid graphics. Unlike virtual reality, AR stands alone as it utilises real existing environments, allowing the audience to be connected and influenced to it, through the device.

One area AR is proving to be increasingly revolutionary is in the area of healthcare. ARnatomy (Carson 2015) is a term used to describe the emergence of these two sectors. HELPlightning is an ARnatomy concept that does just that. Utilising two screens, HELPlightning connects the camera data from one screen to the camera data of another screen, overlaying the two images and essentially acting like a modern day remote support system.

Present presence by Help lightning 2016

The system involves two users at it’s current development state, one who has a visual problem and a responder who has the knowledge but not access to be physically present to assist in the situation. The creators of HELPlightning, thanks to the statistics provided by the British Journal of Clinical Psychology realised the power of statistics and turned the discovery of nonverbal cues being 430% more effective than verbal cues into a design solution for existing problems.

Present presence by Help lightning 2016

Along with its direct application to healthcare and education, HELPlightning has the capacity to completely replace remote assist technologies such as those used on computer systems currently where authority is given to another party to do a complete system takeover. Potentially it could be used in long distance education, to make customer help lines quicker, and even save lives in remote areas where emergency medical assistance is not available. It works to maximise speed, quality, satisfaction and experience and minimise delay, cost and waste.

 

 

Reference list

Carson, E. 2015, 6 cool uses for augmented reality in healthcare, Tech Republic, date accessed 20 August 2015, < http://www.techrepublic.com/article/6-cool-uses-for-augmented-reality-in-healthcare/ >.

Dezeen, 2013, ikea launches augmented reality catalogue, Dezeen, date accessed 21 August 2016, < http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/05/ikea-launches-augmented-reality-catalogue/ >.

Help Lightning Inc. 2016, how it works, date accessed 21 August 2016, < https://www.helplightning.com/how-it-works >.

Lass, W. 2015, The future of augmented reality: limitations, possibilities and hopes, Emerging Tech, date accessed 20 August 2016, < http://www.emergingedtech.com/2015/07/future-of-augmented-reality-limitations-possibilities-hopes/ >.