Advances in DIY Health and Wellbeing

Abstract

The choice of consumer healthcare and wellbeing technologies has never been greater, and the introduction of consumer wearable technologies and inexpensive sensor kits means that developing bespoke personalized health devices is now possible. For example, there is a growing community making DIY diabetes technologies and the trend is spreading to other health areas where people want to design, customize, manufacture and disseminate their own DIY health and wellbeing technologies. Although the CHI community has started to investigate these trends, the pace that motivated open-source health 'makers' and 'hackers' are developing technologies means that there is a need to bring together researchers to discuss the HCI implications of this changing landscape.

Caring through Data

“…Drawing on ethnographic insights from hospital settings, Strauss et al, for instance, described several types of micro-activities related to care, such as the 'information work' required to manage a patient's chart [48] or the 'sentimental work' nurses' might perform in soothing an anxious patient about to have their blood drawn [45]. New types of care-related work are also just beginning to be explored in a range of healthcare contexts, such as DIY/making cultures [36,37]. We see our study as adding to these ongoing efforts to better understand care as it is lived.…”

Social, Cultural and Systematic Frustrations Motivating the Formation of a DIY Hearing Loss Hacking Community

“…Beyond frustrations with the design and advertising, participants felt it was "a shame things are moving so slowly in that field" (P2, CI) with slow release cycles: "they've been in our ears for the last sort of 30, 40 years […] there's no innovation there" (P5, CI). Views on the slow pace of manufacturers were similar to the diabetes community's #WeAreNotWaiting movement who are designing and developing their own solutions [52]. This perception stemmed from comparisons of "expensive" "clunky medical devices" for HL with consumer electronics such as "noise cancelling headphones" (P2, CI) with superior functionality.…”

“…For example, DIY diabetes groups such as Nightscout have designed technologies that can upload blood glucose levels to smartphones for remote monitoring, which was not previously possible with available consumer technologies [38,39]. Another concept that is becoming increasingly popular in the HCI community is healthcare 'hacking,' which involves a meetup of individuals from various backgrounds to produce innovative solutions to health and wellbeing problems [52]. While there has been research into DIY technologies in the diabetes and prosthetics community [11,38,39,52,56], little work has been focused on HL.…”

“…Another concept that is becoming increasingly popular in the HCI community is healthcare 'hacking,' which involves a meetup of individuals from various backgrounds to produce innovative solutions to health and wellbeing problems [52]. While there has been research into DIY technologies in the diabetes and prosthetics community [11,38,39,52,56], little work has been focused on HL.…”

My Naturewatch Camera

“…Digital making, and maker culture more generally, has been a topic of much interest in the HCI community, with research variously providing overviews of existing communities and activities (e.g., [20,21,33,38,42]) and examples of products designed for open source making [7,28,29,39,40]. While much of this work celebrates making as an alternative to, or alternative route into, traditional commercial design (e.g., [20,22,23,41]), others have identified impediments in the form of commercial disincentives [1] and, more broadly, limited access [19,36]].…”