Download Karten Design’s Snapshot for more information on specific products and themes from the sixth annual Body Computing Conference. We’re dedicated to being your resource for information and innovation in Health Innovation.

Last month I attended the USC Body Computing Conference, produced by Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, Dr. Leslie Saxon, and her team at the USC Center for Body Computing. Many conferences bring together innovators shaping today’s health technology. What I really enjoy about the Body Computing Conference is its interdisciplinary perspective. Leading device manufacturers, Big Data experts, scientists, engineers, doctors, social media and game developers, sports industry executives, product designers and Hollywood producers all came together to explore how Digital Health can integrate into people’s lives and drive better health outcomes.

Though they approached it from many angles, speakers at the Body Computing Conference ultimately prescribed a clear path to success: access and engagement. We need to make data from connected health devices available to the people who use them, and we need to create deeper, more relevant value for this information in users’ lives.

Access

Traditionally, patients have had limited access to their own health data. It’s lived in folders at their doctor’s office. This leads to a fragmented view of health—it’s something you address in the context of your doctor. Without a constant flow of information, people fail to take ownership of their health. Dr. Saxon and members of the Center for Body Computing are trying to change that by giving people real-time access to the data coming from their bodies. Karten Design helped Cameron Health, a company that manufactures implantable cardiac devices, to present a first-of-its-kind concept that lets people monitor the performance of their heart and their implant on their smart phone. Outside of the clinical setting, people can now purchase devices that monitor their blood pressure, pulse, physical activity, sleep, fertility, and mood, just to name a few things. Speakers at the Body Computing Conference weighed in on an ongoing debate about how much information to give consumers. There’s the possibility that independent access will undermine the doctor’s control, or that patients will misinterpret data and worry about things that are insignificant. Speakers (even a representative from the FDA!) agreed that informed patients are best. They’re engaged in their health and motivated to make lifestyle changes.

For product manufacturers, this means that first we need to think about making data from electronic devices or sensors accessible, yet secure. Beyond that, we have to consider how the information is shared. Raw data is hard to interpret and people may not know how to take corrective action based on the information. We need to focus on turning data into insight that leads to action: you need to walk more today, or you need to eat less sodium and more fiber. Even data needs design.

Engagement

It’s not enough that a product or technology works. It also has to resonate with its intended users. Dr. Saxon (whose own brother is an award-winning Hollywood producer) believes that if Connected Health is ever going to truly take off, it needs marketing help from Hollywood. Creative thinkers are needed to craft messages about the benefits of technology and weave it in to people’s life narratives. Their understanding should be not just technical and logical, but emotional. This is why she’s tapped people in USC’s schools of Cinema and Sports Medicine, even athletes from USC’s football team. A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!

This is something that product manufacturers can take to heart, as well. Whether it’s performance, wellbeing, or entertainment, find connections with customers’ lives and their personal narratives.

Snapshot

Karten Design has captured more information and opportunities from the Body Computing Conference in our Snapshot. Read about what other entrepreneurs and innovators are doing to take digital health technology to a global population and begin planning your next move in the Connected Health movement.

For the past month my co-worker, designer Eric Schmid, and I have spoken to audiences of designers, researchers, and product development professionals about making design research actionable for healthcare products. We were excited to present together as a researcher and a designer, sharing how the two of us have collaborated in various projects to make sure that design research is translated into product innovation.

Much of our healthcare product development at Karten Design involves introducing disruptive innovation into the healthcare system. We’ve developed products like the V2 Renal Denervation System that enable doctors to perform new procedures, and we’ve even designed products that change the ways consumers manage their own health. Although such innovations promise to raise the standard of care and save time and money, it’s still possible for them to meet resistance. After all, we’re asking people to make changes to the habits they’ve built for years.

Today, disruptive innovation is becoming the norm in the healthcare industry, and these products need to match people’s needs. If they fail to do so– if they demand more change than a user is willing to endure– then the product will not be adopted. Design research is more important than ever. Designers like Eric want to approach designing disruptive products with a full understanding of users’ behaviors, ceremonies, and perceptions.

As a design researcher, I go out with my team to study people. I end up in hospitals, homes, offices… even bathrooms. Getting rich, nuanced information from people about their needs and desires is only the first challenge I face. Perhaps even bigger and more important is the challenge of communicating this information to the rest of my product development team in a way that’s engaging and ultimately actionable.

If designers don’t latch onto the insights our research team uncovers in the field, then our insights are lost and the value they could bring to a product never materializes. This is especially problematic for healthcare products, where applying research insights affects product safety and patient well-being, and where product design can have such an impact on an emotionally charged patient journey.

That’s why this transition phase between research and design has become an important part of our product development process at Karten Design. We’ve found that making design research actionable comes down to a few key principles. Eric and I shared these strategies with our colleagues at the IDSA and PDMA SoCal Chapter, and want to make them available to our followers who could not be at these events.

1. Define a Success Criteria.

As a team, it’s important to define the necessary elements for your program to achieve success. Before anyone goes into the field or puts pencil to paper, talk to your teammates and establish a common vision. This alignment will help researchers target their programs to provide information most useful to product development. It also helps teams stay focused on the big picture and avoid spending too much time on the tangents that research can unearth. When working with a medical device company to drive innovation in non-invasive ventilation, we hosted a kick-off workshop at Karten Design that brought together 25 people, including the client’s engineers, marketing team, and sales team– disciplines that rarely talked to each other and had competing priorities for product development. One of the biggest factors to success in this project was the written Criteria for Success that came out of the workshop, reconciling the needs of every stakeholder involved. Having a shared vision creates a common framework that enables better communication between researchers and designers as a project progresses.

2. Marble Disciplines.

Throwing information over the fence from one discipline to another invites disconnect. Instead, we practice something that we call “marbling” at Karten Design– like a delicious marble cake or a succulent piece of marbled beef. (What can we say, we have a bunch of foodies in the studio…) We believe that product innovation works best when research, design, and engineering collaborate throughout the process, spilling outside their silos. By getting designers in the field and involving researchers and engineers in concept development and reviews, we create engaging experiences for the entire team. Each discipline is responsible for making research actionable, so designers start to feel a personal ownership of the research insights.

3. Build Empathy.

People, not just systems or products, are a big part of our research– how they feel when they undertake a task or interact with a product, what challenges they face in their lives and work, and even how they feel about themselves. The most fertile research creates an empathetic experience for those who attend interviews or ethongraphies. Whether we’re watching babies in the NICU or listening to someone talk about the toileting experience with the complication of hemorrhoids, we come out of the field inspired by the human emotions we’ve witnessed, driven to find better solutions. It’s then our job to recreate the empathy we feel for team members who were not involved in the field research. We invite designers and other team members to mine these stories along with us. This deeper engagement starts the empathetic process as designers begin to connect with users’ joys and frustrations. With an internalized understanding, designers quickly realize opportunities to design a better experience.

4. Study the Full Ecosystem.

Understand the interactions and relationships between all components in an environment if you want to ensure you’re considering the full range of opportunities. This means studying all stakeholders who interact with a product, from doctors and nurses to patients and caregivers. It also involves looking holistically at the product experience. For the V2 Renal Denervation System, a key research objective was to ascertain the optimal location for the device in the cath lab, how it should be operated, and by whom. We answered this by studying the full ecosystem of the cath lab– the complete use environment, the different people and equipment, how they relate to each other, and how things flow during a typical procedure. After studying a handful of cath labs we started to see the different possibilities and the opportunities for design.

5. Make it Visual.

Most people, especially designers, are visual learners. It’s important to transition as early as possible in the analysis phase from text and data to image-based information. We’ve developed a number of tools, including ModeMaps, Thread Matrixes, and Opportunity Landscapes, to put our information out for all to see and analyze. These tools help us to interpret and organize information to communicate, prioritize, and comprehend findings by all team members.

Regardless of the size or scope of the project, or the nature of your business, these are principles that you can apply to use design research effectively to turn research insights into innovation. In the end, they’re all meant to facilitate communication. It’s this dialog that forces project teams to own design research, internalize it, and dig deep to create insights that are larger than the sum of their parts.

Over the past six years working with Starkey Laboratories, we have learned more about the unique emotional and physical needs of 65- to 85-year-old end users than any other demographic/end user we’ve designed for. We know that as people age their physical and emotional needs change, and, in turn, so do the products and services they use. It was this focus on serving aging Americans that linked us with The Aging Technology Alliance.

The Aging Technology Alliance, or AgeTek, is a consortium of companies that create solutions to fit the emotional and physical needs of older adults. These companies have joined together because they, like Karten Design, believe that innovative products and services can improve people’s lives and change the way they can thrive as they get better, not just older.

As part of AgeTek’s mission to provide professional education for its members, Director of Design Strategy and Research Ron Pierce and I presented a webinar as part of their webinar series on how to design products for older users. We discussed how to use Design Research to discover unmet needs, and keep the end user at the center of the product development process. I wrote a blog post to follow up our webinar, synthesizing what we shared into four insights that are detailed below. I hope there’s something that you can take away, as well.

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE AGING TECHNOLOGY SPACE 

Many growing companies are focused on technology. They’ve developed something with the power to change lives and, consequently, they fall in love with their technology. A mature product has to have effective technology, but then must move into the next stage—applying technology to the human context. This requires a holistic understanding of the user—their behaviors, rituals, ceremonies, preferences, delights, and their limitations. Don’t just fall in love with your technology; fall in love with your end users. Learn what emotions they experience when they interact with your product, or even when they think about purchasing it. Getting inside users’ heads was the starting point for Karten Design’s relationship with Starkey. We quickly discovered that older people associate hearing aids with age, disability and weakness, and as a result they put off purchasing a hearing aid, living in isolation for almost a decade. Many products associated with aging have the same stigma that’s important to understand. At the point where someone needs an assistive product, he or she often already feels disabled. It’s important that technology products empower users rather than making them feel weaker.

R.O.I. ON DESIGN 

There are more ways to measure return on investment than quarterly financial gain. Consider also returns like customer relationships. We believe a well-designed product can be a brand ambassador. Good design can help your product to be distributed in new channels and reach new consumers. It also has the potential to strengthen relationships with your existing channels and end users. One of the most exciting results of our design partnership for Starkey’s executives was the improved image that the company gained within its existing sales channels. Each new product introduction has created a stir at international trade shows, building Starkey’s global reputation for design leadership. Audiologists have gone from simply carrying Starkey products to being evangelists for Starkey products. Even end users, who may have initially been reluctant to adopt a hearing aid, have become enthusiastic advocates for Starkey’s products. Building relationships between your customers and your brands is a long-term investment with long-term returns.

DESIGN RESEARCH

Karten Design spent three months in the field conducting design research with hearing professionals and hearing aid users before translating our insights into design for Starkey. During this time we examined all of the factors that would affect a hearing aid’s market impact: manufacturing process, sales channels, and most importantly end users and their ceremonies. Get to know your customers’ ceremonies and habits. As you develop a research strategy, consider whether your product fits in with those ceremonies or requires users to develop a new habit. Successfully implementing a paradigm shift, as we did when introducing the industry’s first gesture control, requires a higher level of research in order to create and evaluate the product’s value and introduce the right metaphor to make it easily understood by users.

SENIORS’ RELATIONSHIP WITH TECHNOLOGY

A common myth persists that seniors are afraid of technology. In my experience, this is not the case. Seniors are ready and willing to adopt technology that provides a benefit in their lives. When we helped Starkey develop a capacitive gesture control for its hearing aids, we were adopting a ceremony from iPhones, which inspired a slew of touch screens in consumer electronics. We questioned whether a modern technological ceremony would be relevant and easily understood by older users and the answer, with a few qualifications, was a resounding yes. Gesture control was relevant to users not because it represented a cool new development, but because it satisfied a need—to control a hearing aid discretely with a simple motion. Our strategy was to focus the technology on meeting the need. When it does this in the simplest possible way, the technology becomes transparent. The iPad is another example of transparent technology that has been enthusiastically adopted by older users. The iPad fulfills an emotional need to connect and engage with family and friends. The product is so easy to use and understand that the technology fades into the background; all you see is the benefit.

There are two areas that technology companies can focus on to improve their relationship between their products and senior customers. For any user, but perhaps most importantly for seniors, a successful product relationship is based on mutual respect and two-way communication.

I find it disrespectful when companies dumb down products either visually or technologically for older users. Today’s seniors have more sensitivity to quality and design than previous generations. Just because someone becomes physically disabled as they age does not mean they become aesthetically handicapped. When we designed hearing aids for Starkey, we leveraged inspiring design imagery from luxury automobiles and modern architecture to create a sophisticated image. Aesthetically re-framing a product this way—respecting seniors’ aesthetic sensibilities and the self-image they’ve built throughout their lives—has done much to chip away at the stigma associated with hearing aids.

Seniors’ relationship with technology benefits from frequent dialog between person and product. Pay attention to the feedback your product gives its user. The success of gesture control hinged in part on fine-tuning its feedback to let users know not just when there were problems, but to confirm that they had successfully made adjustments.

If you’re interested in additional research on the Boomer Generation, you can download Karten Design’s Orange Slice, a mini report on the lifestyle, economic and psychographic trends that will affect this generation as they move into a new stage of life.

In this special to Orange Juice, graphic designer Erin Williams shares her experience with a new digital health technology in her quest for fitness.

For five years, bicycling was my primary mode of transportation. I rarely felt the need to hit the gym, because I logged 16 miles a day with my daily commute. But while cycling was great for my legs and my heart, the last year of this journey grew increasingly stressful as tensions with L.A. drivers escalated, landing me in the hospital with a head injury last summer. When I finally gave in and bought a car, my family and coworkers were relieved not to have to worry, but I found new things that I need to worry about. In my first month of driving, I gained five pounds. Five! In one month! I realized that I could no longer count on my heart rate and blood pressure being excellent every time I went to the doctor, could no longer eat a plate of pasta just because I went for a long ride.

I had been getting all of my exercise without ever having to think about it; getting on my bike in the morning was simply habitual.

At the office, I’ve been learning about how new technologies are changing the way people approach healthcare—changing the conversation from disease management to preventative care and healthy lifestyles, and getting patients more engaged and invested in their own outcomes.

I decided to test some of the Connected Health tools I was learning about at the office. I tried Fitocracy as a part of my research, but an aversion to sharing my every movement, measurement, and calorie count with the world prevented me from using the more social aspects of the site. I don’t think I’ve signed in for at least two months.

Then a recent NPR segment on Charles Duhigg’s new book, The Power of Habit, gave me a clue what I needed. Duhigg says that habits are actually composed of three parts that form a loop: the cue, the behavior, and the reward. The cue signals to us that we will get the reward, which causes us to engage in the behavior, and then the reward convinces us that we should keep engaging in this behavior.

This theory explains why it’s so hard for most people to develop good exercise habits—instead of an immediate reward, we are left with fatigue and sore muscles. We tell ourselves “no pain no gain,” and “it’ll be worth it in the long run,” but the lack of instantaneous incentive deters the formation of exercise as a habit. Sure, some people claim that they experience an exercise high, that they genuinely feel better after a good run, but can we just admit that this is not normal for someone who is trying to form a new habit? This happens for people who are already in the habit of exercising. So the rest of us need to fake that positive feedback loop until the natural benefits like weight loss and increased energy kick in.

Fortunately, I’ve discovered a new company called GymPact that was launched this January specifically for that purpose. People who are having a little trouble sticking to their gym schedules sign up, commit to how many days they want to work out each week (I’ve started out at just 2 days a week), and set the monetary stakes they’ll pay if they don’t go.

Herein lies the instant incentive to maintain one’s gym schedule – if you miss a workout, you have to pay a certain amount of money (no less than $5). That’s right, I get fined $5 for each workout I miss, and that money gets redistributed to the people who did do their workouts. And the people at GymPact will know if I miss a workout, because I use an iPhone app to check in at my gym every time I go, and they time how long I stay (under half an hour doesn’t count). Every Sunday night, GymPact tallies up the number of workouts other members and I have done, compares them to our goals, and charges us accordingly. I have only been a member for a week, but I can see that this simple commitment, with no calorie tracking, no competition, and no weigh-ins, is causing me to make hitting the gym more of a priority. Stick with me to see if I can stick with it!

Reflecting on Movember, Karten Design Designer Jonathan Abarbanel discusses the role of storytelling in men’s health.

Karten Design just finished up a successful Movember. By growing mustaches for a month, 10 of our men used their faces to start conversations about men’s health and raise almost $1,000 dollars to fund men’s health research and education.

We’ve had a lot of conversations in our studio during Movember. Most were about mustaches, but a few were about larger issues of health. I wonder, as Movember turns into December and most of the men at Karten Design shave their Mo-staches, what the experiences and conversations have meant to those of us who participated.

Last week I sat down with our Movember Team Captain Jonathan Abarbanel to get his point of view. A father of two young children and the husband of a children’s librarian, Jonathan is something of an expert at storytelling. Recently, Jonathan took a class in Narrative and Digital Media at UCLA Extension, and it’s made him think about the role that stories play in our everyday lives. He believes that stories are all around us, and we uncover new stories by doing new things. I asked Jonathan what sorts of stories he’s found in Movember.

Can stories change our behavior? If so, in what ways?

We all have personal narratives. It’s this subconscious image of who you are as a “character,” and it becomes your mental framework for remembering and making sense of events. People selectively remember or forget events that reinforce the self image they hold. These stories are incredibly powerful. If you have a certain image of what challenges you seek out, who you are as an individual and how you respond to challenge, it will change your behavior.

What kinds of stories might be most useful when it comes to health?

I remember when Tom Green was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was a comedian with a reputation for shock humor, and his testicular cancer turned out to be weirdly appropriate material. He did a comedy special that detailed his experience with testicular cancer in “dude language” with Bevis and Butthead-style humor. This language really resonated with a young audience that might not have thought about their health. I think the most useful stories are frank, plain-spoken, and authentic.

Do you think there are any stories or methods that appeal more to men?

When men talk among themselves, their conversations are action-based, not feeling-based. I think that’s what’s missing in the health conversation. Traditional men’s health discussions focus on things like body building and exercise. Now there’s a growing movement in wellness and emotional health, but so far it has not taken a male-centric point of view. It’s considered un-masculine to even talk about wellness or emotional balance! As much as I would like to think I’m not a typical guy, I don’t talk about health with my dad or my two brothers. The closest we come to talking about health is re-hashing the story of my grandpa—my dad’s dad—who lived to be 96. He had a set routine. He would wake up at 5 in the morning and swim laps. His mantra for life as well as health was “everything in moderation.” In our culture, that’s how “real” men talk. It’s action based.

The Movember website advises people to know their family health history: “Start a discussion with your relatives about the health issues they’ve had in the past. Be sure to learn about relatives that are deceased too.” Do you know your family health history? How does this influence how you perceive your story?

I know that I have a family history of diabetes, cancer, and high cholesterol. It’s one thing to know the conditions that run in your family. It’s quite another to turn unemotional data into something that has resonance and spurs action—a story that’s personal and detailed. My dad could tell me about going to visit his Aunt Beatrice in the rest home and how she had no legs because she lost them to diabetes. When you get such visceral details, presented in the context of an experiential story, you start to realize, hey, that could be me. I don’t want that to happen to me.

But we don’t often tell these types of stories. For me, it’s less about specific stories and more about altering the underlying culture that prevents people—men in particular—from sharing their stories. Maybe it’s a good thing that there are shows like Men of a Certain Age that depict men talking about their health, or even all of the commercials about erectile dysfunction. Even if they don’t ring true in our culture today, I guess I see them as aspirational. They set up a new model for interaction and chip away at taboos. I think professional storytellers should look for more ways to integrate health into our every-day conversations, whether it’s comedy routines or television shows. Maybe it will eventually filter down into the ways that friends and families talk to each other.

You may have noticed something hairy happening around our studio. This year for the first time, Karten Design has formed a team to participate in Movember. During the month of November, 11 of us “Mo Bros” have pledged to grow a moustache for 30 days, becoming walking, talking billboards for men’s health causes– specifically cancers affecting men.

This is a cause near to my heart. I’ve had friends and even employees who are survivors of testicular and prostate cancer. But beyond those experiences I’ve witnessed directly, I see an unmet need for men to take more ownership of their health.

At Karten Design, we study human behavior and use our insights to inform products that are more exciting and engaging for their users. Our projects for medical devices, apps and systems often take us into the healthcare context, where we study patients. We’ve visited hospitals, health clinics and homes to interview people and observe how they behave.

For years, we’ve watched as individuals have become empowered to take ownership of their health. New technologies, from informational web sites to devices that allow consumers to monitor vital signs and caloric expenditure, give people actionable information that they can use to form healthy lifestyles. Online platforms make it easier than ever to connect with a doctor or with other patients experiencing similar conditions. But most of the people taking advantage of these solutions are women.

During years of research, we’ve noticed that men are more reluctant to talk about health than their female counterparts. The anthropologists and sociologists in our studio can speculate on the reasons why: maybe it’s the idea that men stake more of their personal identity on strength. They don’t want to acknowledge weakness by seeking medical help, or even admitting that something is wrong. Maybe women are more in touch with their health because they are strongly encouraged (sometimes even required) to get annual exams.

Whatever a man’s individual reason is for distancing himself from his health, research shows that 24% of men are less likely to go to the doctor compared to women. By denying themselves the chance of early detection and effective treatment of common diseases, men suffer disproportionately from serious health problems. One in two men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, compared to one in three women. Many of these cancers are preventable through awareness and lifestyle change. Evidence suggests that about a third of the 571,950 cancer deaths expected to occur will be related to obesity, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and thus could be prevented. Smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths and 87% of lung cancer deaths.

I hope that growing moustaches will be an experience that encourages our studio and our network to pay attention to their health. We’ve recently explored the power of community-driven health experiences to engage people and change behavior. Movember seems like a great example. It’s engendered a real sense of community at Karten Design. We post images of our favorite moustaches; we share tips on grooming and shaping; we take pictures. We’re into it!  And besides bonding over our common ability to grow facial hair, we’ve also raised more than $700 to support organizations like the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Livestrong, and Movember.

For most of us, growing a moustache represents a behavioral change. Even those of us who are longtime facial hair aficionados committed to shaving clean and starting from scratch. By introducing one change to our daily rituals, I believe we’re opening the door to a wider awareness. Even after our Movember moustaches are shaved away, I hope we’ll look back on the experience and think twice about how we’re taking care of ourselves.

If you’d like to join our cause to “change the face of men’s health,” visit our team page to add your donation.

With the introduction of Timeline a few weeks ago, Facebook emphasized the importance of life stories in human interaction. This interface taps into the way that people innately understand their own lives with a narrative structure that allows users to express a whole identity, rather than a fragmented view of events and photos.

Timeline is just one example of how companies can tap into the power of narrative to communicate with customers on a meaningful level. Recently, my team found inspiration in an unlikely source: health care. The USC Body Computing Conference 5.0 highlighted organizations that are blurring the lines between medicine and entertainment to change how consumers view their health. I asked Karten Design’s resident storyteller, Anne Ramallo, to expand on what our designers and researchers took away from the event.

***

When I attend medical conferences and events, I’m always inspired by the breadth of technology on the near horizon. Today, brain waves can be measured through paper-thin electronic tattoos, and heart rhythms can be visualized using an inexpensive iPhone case. Leading thinkers in entertainment and user experience are also learning how to tap into emotion and personal narratives to affect lasting behavioral changes. Rather than the technology, it was this aspect that intrigued me most about the Body Computing Conference.

Developers across disciplines unveiled a variety of immersive experiences, some of which have been developed and tested and others that are imagined for the near future. These experiences are not just fun; they tap into universal elements of storytelling, such as conflict and resolution, to engage and motivate patients to get healthier. Here’s how some of the most cutting-edge health care researchers are using narratives to change unhealthy behavior.

Conflict

Every story begins with the introduction of a conflict that sends ordinary people on a quest for greatness. Health games and apps tie into this narrative structure by introducing challenges that energize players with the opportunity to earn points and status (in addition to good health). The biomedical company Proteus recently conducted a game with 40 top executives from a global company. Proteus researchers devised a point system for physical activity: one point for each step walked, 10 points for every minute a player’s heart rate was elevated above a certain level, more points for taking a placebo medication on time. The result was dramatic change in behavior. During the three days the game lasted, not one participant missed a pill ingestion. One busy executive rearranged his schedule to walk 17 miles over the course of a weekend; another walked out of a meeting to take a jog.

Characters

Once you’ve engaged a person in a quest, provide a cast of supporting characters. Developers such as Livestrong.com have been very successful at using online community support to create healthy habits. The company’s MyQuit Coach, a mobile application that enables people to work toward their goal to quit smoking with the help of a smart cigarette-tracking system and a supportive online community, has been downloaded by 60,000 users. It boasts a 90% success rate, thanks in large part to the interaction between participants. Demand Media’s Joe Perez described the intense relationships that people form with one another in these purpose-driven communities, where a vast majority of successful users said they received continuous positive feedback when they needed it. Members developed loyalty to the group and, even once they quit their smoking habit, stayed in the community and offered support to others. The emotional experience they have in this group inspires a lasting lifestyle change.

Setting 

One thing we’ve learned as product designers is that the setting in which a product is used makes a big difference. Just as a headset takes on a completely different meaning in an emergency rescue situation than when listening to music on the subway, information also takes on different meanings in different contexts. Mark Bolas, the associate director of the MxR Lab at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, did a side-by-side comparison of data displayed on an iPhone and a large cinema screen. “Don’t assume the iPhone is the interface you’ll be stuck with forever,” he said, challenging attendees to imagine new settings where the quest for health could play out. Bolas described his own immersive interfaces, from movie theaters with sensors in each seat that respond to a person’s body signals to create a personalized viewing experience to a hospital building with 4,000 sensors that can automatically tweet, collect data, or send occupants on missions. He believes that environments that fully employ one’s perception and cognition can create a useful, visceral memory of the experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Resolution

A satisfying ending leaves audiences with a sense of resolution. Successful health experiences do the same. St. Jude Medical introduced an app that helps patients monitor and control their heart pressure by taking two measurements a day. The app rewards compliance, healthy heart-pressure trending, and participation in educational activities such as quizzes, with virtual points that may be cashed in for real-world rewards like Amazon credits.

But rewards do not have to hold monetary value to be effective. Virtual badges that acknowledge accomplishments can be just as successful when participants are allowed to share them with communities. The process of rewarding, sharing, and cheering becomes a virtuous cycle that encourages continuous improvement.

***

Technology is amazing. It can lower the cost and improve the efficacy of care. But technology alone is not enough to engage patients and caregivers in behavioral change. After developing technology, the next step is to layer on emotion, creating an experience that becomes a part of a user’s personal story.

Our bodies are like computers, producing volumes of data throughout the day—heart signals, brainwaves, blood pressure and more. Dr. Leslie Saxon, chief cardiologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, believes that by capturing and interpreting this data through wirelessly connected wearable devices, we can help to solve many of the challenges the health care system faces today. Wearable devices can inform patients, giving them greater responsibility and the proper tools to better manage their own health. Real-time physiological data can help healthcare professionals make informed decisions to improve patient outcomes.

Dr. Saxon founded the USC Center for Body Computing, bringing together an interdisciplinary group of physicians, business people, engineers and cinematographers to study and create the future of wireless medicine.

Attending the USC Body Computing Conference, Karten Design was privy to the latest developments and innovations in the field of connected health, from technology and devices that will revolutionize care delivery to interfaces and mobile apps that will encourage people to adopt healthy behaviors before they’re sick.

We’re excited about the potential of Body Computing to empower people—not just patients, but caregivers, coaches, athletes and entertainers. Are you curious? Check out Karten Design’s Snapshot to see highlights and take-aways from the Body Computing Conference.

Did you know that Baby Boomers have more than $1 trillion in disposable income? By the year 2015, people 51 to 70 years old will consume more than any other generational cohort in the US economy for the first time in history.

This caught our attention at Karten Design. We’re closely following the trends that emerge around Baby Boomers to understand how their evolving needs will affect the products we design. Through every stage in their life, Boomers have re-invented social norms and made a lasting impact on our culture. One thing is certain as Boomers enter retirement: they will not conform to traditional notions of aging. This year the oldest Baby Boomers turn sixty-five, signaling a demographic shift that will have huge implications for product manufacturers.

I wanted to share a portion of our research with you by making our report available for download.

Download the Full Orange Slice

As a product design and innovation firm, we find it essential to keep our eyes on the future, looking at the cultural tremors that will affect the ways that people experience products. Karten Design’s “Orange Slice” is a series of mini trend reports that explore emerging trends and their effect on the relationship between people and products. 

An Interview with WLSA VP of Partner Development, Paul Sonnier

One of the biggest opportunities for accelerating the adoption of Wireless Health is the creation of a consumer movement. This is one thing that struck me during this year’s WLSA Convergence Summit. Connected devices, apps and services marketed directly to consumers are allowing people to achieve personal health objectives, whether that involves getting a better night’s sleep (Zeo Personal Sleep Coach), managing weight (Fit Bit or Body Media), or even conceiving a child (Duo Fertility). Many medical device companies are taking traditional routes, coordinating with insurance providers, health systems and the FDA to get their devices adopted in clinical settings. But innovative start-ups like these, as well as consumer giants like Procter & Gamble, are taking Wireless Health directly to consumers.

Working in the marketing department for a company that designs both medical devices and consumer products, I was intrigued by the idea of a consumer-driven movement in healthcare. It represents a major shift away from the insurance-driven model of healthcare prominent in the U.S. today. This growing business model will force manufacturers to think harder about patients’ needs, their habits and their lifestyles and to develop a strong consumer-facing brand.

To delve more deeply into this topic, I spoke with Paul Sonnier, Vice President of Partner Development at the Wireless-Life Science Alliance (WLSA). WLSA is a special-purpose trade organization dedicated to creating value and improving health, globally, through the convergence of communications technologies, consumers, caregivers and all sectors of the life sciences and technology environment. In his role, Paul fosters partnership and collaboration between WLSA members and inducting new partners—both clinical and consumer companies. Additionally, Paul founded and manages the Wireless Health group on LinkedIn, which is dedicated to advancing knowledge and building relationships between professionals interested in the convergence of wireless technology with the continuum of clinical healthcare, clinical research, and consumer health.

Excerpts of our conversation follow.

Where are we now in the adoption cycle of Wireless Health? Does the consumer have a role or interest in advancing the adoption?

Both clinical and consumer concerns will drive the future of Wireless Health. There are distinctions and overlaps between the business models of the two sectors, but for both, the central focus is on health. Today, hospitals are already filled with wireless technology. Phones are pervasive with caregivers as well as consumers. But I believe the biggest potential for growth lies with consumers. I’ve advocated that we work toward the creation of an mHealth/wireless health consumer movement because I think wireless health can set off a global idea pandemic. When consumers fully and widely understand the benefits of wireless health, it can amplify the efforts of industry, policymakers, and academia. There are billions of consumers. Once they are inculcated to this idea and it becomes viral, there’s no stopping it.

What needs to be done to make consumers more aware of the benefits of mHealth?

If all constituencies—companies, industry groups, governments, NGOs, professionals, and consumers—were to make a concerted effort to communicate the value of wireless technology in health applications and availability of mHealth solutions and their many benefits, we could potentially initiate a consumer movement reinforcing the efforts of industry. In my opinion, this is the missing catalyst required to further accelerate realization of the full potential of mHealth and wireless health. It needs to be a large-scale, viral movement. Dr. Dave Albert, inventor of the iPhone ECG, set forth some criteria for creating a global idea pandemic in a talk this spring for TEDxOKC. With the right convergence of technology, ease of use, social networks, media syndication and timing, an idea can become viral.

For my part, I’m focusing on building up the Wireless Health LinkedIn group professional social network, which has become a tribe. I’m also focused on connecting members of the WLSA with beneficial partners for partnering and pursuit of opportunities that collaboration makes possible. Earlier this year, I made the decision to make these groups open for viewing by anyone. They are also open for indexing by search engines and easier sharing of discussions via shortened hyperlinks, Twitter, and Facebook.  With nearly 6,000 members, this group is the biggest of its kind by a wide margin, and it delivers the most value through its wide network and relevant discussions and news posts by members. A vast majority of members are people from different industries—not just health or wireless—because ultimately, we’re all stakeholders. We are all consumers and patients.

You mentioned “branding mHealth” in your article. With so many players and stakeholders involved, do you think it’s beneficial, or even possible, to establish one consistent definition for the Wireless Health movement?

Having a consistent brand would be huge. A good functional analogy is the organic food industry. Certified Organic foods are easy to brand and sell. The organic stamp becomes a trust mark for consumers, who believe in the health benefits of the food they buy.

It would also be helpful if there were a central theme in the messaging of wireless health companies. Currently, there’s some naming confusion. People refer to this phenomenon as “wireless health,” “connected health,” “digital health,” and “mHealth” just to name a few. These terms do have some distinctions and are useful, but can distract from a brand image. My belief is that the real game-changer in consumer health and healthcare delivery is simply wireless technology. The engine behind these solutions, whether sensors or cell phone apps, is wireless technology. The benefits they enable are mobility, freedom, independence and information (real time or asynchronous). If you consistently show and tell consumers what wireless health enables, they will start to see the value in these solutions and begin driving the industry sector as consumers are wont to do. This is a goal, but it is not a requirement. Wireless health is becoming pervasive – a sort of invisible revolution. My objective is to do what I can to accelerate this revolution so that we can ultimately achieve the paradox of better health and healthcare concomitant with reduced costs to consumers and our healthcare systems.