HEARTISANS

A service for cardiovascular disease prevention by the means of diet management

Prevention behaviour | Diet | Health psychology | Service design | Wearable device

Group project: Carolina Falcão | Salvatore Luca Cucinella | Xingyu Yang 2019.01

My work Desk Research. Workshop design and facilitating. Concept generating. User journey drawing. Info. architecture. UI design. Part of report writing

INTRODUCTION

Heartisans - the product

High blood pressure (BP) is one of the main cardiovascular risk factors from young adulthood to a very elderly age. A device called Heartisans is a watch designed with the purpose of making the measurement of BP easier and its use is associated with an app.

Preventive behaviours

Preventive health behaviours need to be implemented since a young age to reduce the risks to suffer by cardiovascular diseases. In our study, we aim to generate awareness within healthy young adults living abroad about personal health and diet choices that can have an influence in the long term.

A service around the product

With the intent to develop a preventive disease management program, we designed a service to help users in managing their lifestyle and to guide them by providing personalised recommendations to promote healthy habits, such as a healthy diet.

BLOOD PRESSURE & DIET

Young adults are at risk of high BP due to various factors: diet, emotional/mental stress, posture, and physical activity intensity. In this project, we focus on how to promote healthy diet with a service.

DASH Diet

The risk of high BP is highly related to unhealthy food, liquid, salt, and stimulant consumption. DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is an eating plan to lower or control high blood pressure. It encourages consumption of:

TARGET GROUP

International students (master, phd)

Within the focus on young people, we further define the target group as international students, as representative of early adulthood stage. International students leave their own country to study or work abroad. As a consequence, their lifestyle is modified, including their diet which usually suffer in terms of quality and quantity.

Persona

A persona is illustrated based on the research with international students by reflecting on ourselves and some quick interviews.

Generative session

To gain a deep understanding of the target group and generate insights for design. A team of three researchers conducted a study with seven healthy international master students. The study involved a sequence of research steps including:

Preparation and Sensitizing
A booklet was designed to sensitize participants for the topic - diet, blood pressure and health - and to help them reflect on their diet.
Group session
Participants discuss and share their experience and opinions regarding diet adjustment in the Netherlands, and later they were encouraged to elicit their preferences and emotional responses towards their ingredient choices through a series of tasks.
Introducing Heartisans
Introducing the watch to the participants and collect their thoughts about using the device in their daily life. Finally, gathering thoughts of participants regarding their diet, blood pressure, and health.

Insights

Researchers analysed the data collected by watching and listening to the audio and video recordings. The target users’ attitude towards health, diet and Heartisans can be formulated as the following:

Insights were derived from participants’ quotes wrote on Statement cards and later clustered. The summarised insights were used during the design ideation phase.

DESIGN VISION

Objective

Methods

SERVICE DESIGN

The service is divided in a four phase: Instruction, Calibration, Measurement, Diet advice, and is based on leasing the device. Previous research has shown that users lose their interest in monitoring their health after six months of use, therefore, we have designed a temporary service, in which the user experience the product in terms of the watch and digital service for three months, and enjoy the diet plan service online for another six months.

User journey & Service blueprint

Instructional phase

The instructional phase aims to inform the user about the importance of measuring blood pressure. Providing information about the link between health and behavior, in the case, mainly about the link of diet and the blood pressure.

Instructions about the blood pressure / value, curiosity
The service website provides videos and texts reinforcing the role of keeping a healthy blood pressure to have a healthy heart in the future.
Achieve a social norm about blood pressure management / lifestyle, routine
This phase provides several stories of users. By exposing such stories we aim to provide a notion about what other people might think about measuring blood pressure, even if the user does not have any health condition, and how feeling curious about your personal health is something that more people do and think is valuable.
Ensure data consent / concerns
During the generative session we have identified several concerns regarding the use of the reported data and the measurements. We envision that in this service the data consent would use the framework of the contextual integrity.
No medical advice
It is important to mention that this phase also provides information about who is able to join the service. Potential users with chronic diseases such as diabetics are instructed to do not subscribe. It is also informed that this service does not substitute any advice given by a physician or a nutritionist, neither it provides any medical advice.
About the duration
The instructional phase does not have a fixed time duration. The information should be available for potential users and whoever is interested in the service. This phase “ends”, although the information is still available on the website, once the user has subscribed to the service and order the device.

Calibration & Measurement

The Calibration phase involves calibrating the device for one week. During this phase the user receives a welcome package by mail, downloads the application and is asked to measure his blood pressure once a day.

The measurement phase is the phase when the user is asked to use the device to measure his blood pressure, after a meal, at least once a day. This phase lasts three months and generates the data to provide custom recommendations and generate awareness.

Customised notification time / Lifestyle, routine
The user is asked to set the time when he would like to measure the blood pressure. After providing such information, the user receives daily notifications at the scheduled time.
Engaging the user with feedbacks / Interest
At the end of calibration phase, the user receives a message on his cell phone congratulating him or her and enabling the user to move to the next phase.
During the measurement phase, by providing notifications in a time that suits the user lifestyle and the possibility of observing a direct impact of the diet and other activities on the blood pressure, we aim to engage different users in the service.
Bridging the blood pressure with lifestyle / Curiosities, perceived relations
Before a meal, the user is asked to take a picture. After measuring blood pressure, they record physical activities and personal notes. The service keeps the input process less time-consuming with simple tools. Thus, the user will get an intuitional relation between his or her blood pressure and lifestyle.
When the measurement phase is close to its end, the user is reminded that he needs to return the device and receives instructions on how to perform this action such as pick-up points, address, logistics time, etc. Once the service gets the device back, the user receives an interactive report. The intention is to promote reflection and increase users’ knowledge about what has an effect on their blood pressure, increase their awareness and enable them with knowledge to avoid negative interactions with their blood pressure.
About the duration
The duration of the measurement phase has been designed in accordance to clinical trials that have shown the impact of the diet in the blood-pressure. Its duration is three months. This gives the users the possibility of skipping some measurement days and still have a rich report at the end of this phase.

Diet advice

The Diet Advice phase consists in a six month phase that provides tailored diet recommendations. This phase takes into account the environmental constraints and habits to provide information for the user.

Diet recommendation based on user profile / Lifestyle, routine
At the beginning of the diet advice phase, the user is requested to update his profile page. Informations such as diet restrictions (e.g. vegan, lactose intolerance, halal food), weekly budget are asked and the user address is reviewed.
Based on such informations and the DASH diet guidelines, the system provides recommended and a list of ingredients that corresponds those recipes.