Smart mobile and wearable technology offers exciting opportunities to support people with dementia (PwD). Its ubiquity and popularity could even benefit user adoption – a great challenge for assistive technology (AT) for PwD that calls for user-centred design (UCD) methods. This study describes a user-centred approach to developing and testing AT based on off-the-shelf pervasive technologies. A prototype is created by combining a smartphone, smartwatch and various applications to offer six support features. This is tested among five end-users (PwD) and their caregivers. Controlled usability testing was followed by field testing in a real-world context. Data is gathered from video recordings, interaction logs, system usability scale questionnaires, logbooks, application usage logs and interviews structured on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model. The data is analysed to evaluate usability, usefulness and user acceptance. Results show some promise for user adoption, but highlight challenges to be overcome, emphasising personalisation and familiarity as key considerations. The complete findings regarding usability issues, usefulness of support features and four identified adoption profiles are used to provide a set of recommendations for practitioners and further research. These contribute toward UCD practices for improved smart, pervasive AT for dementia.

-In this paper, the need for automated transportation systems for hospitals is investigated. Among other alternatives, mobile robots stand out as the most prominent means of automation of transportation tasks in hospitals.Existing transportation routines of a hospital are analyzed in order to verify the need for automation and identify possible areas of improvement. The analysis shows that most of the existing transportation is carried out manually, and hospitals can greatly benefit from automated transportation. Based on the results of the analysis, three alternatives are derived for implementing mobile service robots for transportation tasks in hospitals.

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Prototyping is an essential activity in product development, but novice designers lack awareness and purpose when they prototype. To foster prototyping mindsets in novice designers, we introduce a prototyping support tool that structures prototyping activities. This paper outlines the Prototyping Planner's development, evolution, and evaluation by 125 novice designers. The majority of novice designers’ experienced that the Prototyping Planner helped them create purposeful prototypes and evaluate results from prototyping.

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