People’s engagement with their medical therapies can have a profound effect on recovery. From finishing antibiotic treatment to performing physiotherapy exercises, engaging with medical therapies can be the difference between full recovery and poor health outcomes. There are also economic implications; when patients don’t finish their medicine intake, for instance, it costs the health system billions of dollars. This workshop will discuss different approaches to designing medical devices and digital interactions when engagement with therapies is crucial. While game design has some potential to address these issues, there seems to be little cross-disciplinary discussion around what big picture strategies may work for different situations. This workshop calls for designers, anthropologists, psychologists, clinicians and patients who have had experience designing for, or investigating engagement with, medical therapies to attend and offer their strategies. We will facilitate a discussion to map the different approaches across disciplines. We expect the outcome of this workshop to be an initial map that states the common approaches that would be worth investigating in future collaborative research projects.

Workshop Facilitator

Workshop FacilitatorS

Edgar Rodriguez-Ramirez

Smart Interactions, Victoria University of Wellington

Dr Edgar Rodriguez is the Programme Director of Interaction Design and leads the Smart Interactions research lab at VUW’s School of Design, where he designs devices and digital interactions for improving healthcare experiences. He has worked as a designer for Samsung Electronics (Seoul), Sismo Design (Paris) and Studio Santachiara (Milan). Edgar focuses on investigating how to increase engagement with therapies through smart physical medical devices, game design, apps, including Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, for conditions that include stroke rehabilitation, cerebral palsy and pelvic floor disorders. His academic and design work has been published internationally, including in the journal Design Studies, Dutch Design Week and Salone del Mobile in Milan.