Interaction - Bachelors

WARDLIE

Being in hospital is already a stressful event for a child and their family, wardlie is a companion and fighter of boredom during these times. This relaxing interface’s aim is to connect children with their family, friends and healthcare team through interactive activities that can be enjoyed with limited movement.

Emma Dumble

Overview

Everyone takes their health for granted until something happens. The effect a sick child can have on a family is often emotionally, physically, and mentally draining on everyone. wardlie is a new interface that provides entertainment and interactive features for children in hospital aged between 5 and 12 years of age. Designed to be accessed on screens above the hospital bed or on personal tablets such as an iPad, young patients, family, friends and medical teams can always access wardlie.

Five Key Areas

To provide entertainment, help manage hospital anxiety, and be a source of communication, wardlie focuses on five key areas.

rounded squares with the five components of wardlie in the middle

WATCH

A main source of entertainment in hospital is watching movies or series. WATCH in wardlie provides an interface to access such entertainment provided by individual hospitals.

PLAY

Here users can play classic games either by themselves or with their family, friends, or healthcare team. All games chosen can be played with limited movement and rely more on critical and creative thinking than fast paced game play.

CARE

The CARE section of wardlie contains simple managerial tasks that children can complete in order to feel more in control of their care and schedule. The first part is a list of healthcare events that are happening today and lets children know what is happening, when to expect it and what has been done. The next part is the meal and drink ordering system that provides a familiar way to put meal orders in. Finally a visual display of the young patient’s healthcare team is provided. Here users can learn the appearance, name and role of health specialists and feel more knowledgeable on new faces.

TALK

TALK provides alternate methods of communication such as a text to speech, an simple AAC speech tablet and a whiteboard or freehand space. It may be easier for a young patient to communicate via words instead of speech either due to physical, mental, or emotional restrictions so this space is easily accessible.

CALM

CALM contains different relaxation techniques in order to help calm children down before scary events. It has been proven that breathing exercises, identifying things kids can sense, doodling and watching slow movement such as fish swimming, can reduce the level of stress patients can experience.

WARDLIE

wardlie logo in 3d

Emma Dumble

Emma is an emerging designer with a passion for minimalist and humanistic design. Their interests span across UI/UX and visual communication with a special interest in user research.