Cláudia Ortet (DigiMedia PhD student) and Liliana Costa (DigiMedia member), researchers of the DigiMedia PLAYMUTATION project, published in the Special Issue Feature Papers in Wearables 2022 of the Journal Sensors the article entitled “Listen to Your Immune System When It’s Calling for You”: Monitoring Autoimmune Diseases Using the iShU App.

The reasoning for writing the article was based on the fact that even if the immune system plays an important role in protecting human beings against bacteria, viruses, fungi, among other pathogens, however, for reasons that are not fully understood, in some people this protective mechanism accidentally attacks the organs and tissues, which causes inflammation and may lead to the development of autoimmune diseases. Cláudia and Liliana developed and tested a smartphone and smartwatch prototype – iShU – for inflammation surveillance and autoimmune disease management, which allows the monitoring in pre-, during-, and post-inflammatory crises, meeting the personal needs of people with this health condition. Moreover, this prototype crosses research on wearable devices for collection of biofeedback data, mHealth for easy connectivity with systems, and gamification for encouragement of frequent usage and behavior changes to improve self-care in autoimmune diseases.

After publication, the authors received positive feedback on the purpose and significance of the app’s development for people with autoimmune diseases. It encourages not only PLAYMUTATION’s goals, but also the relevance and need for multidisciplinary teams in crossing different fields of research.

Cláudia Ortet (DigiMedia PhD student), Liliana Costa (DigiMedia member) and Ana Veloso (DigiMedia member), researchers of SEDUCE 2.0, published in the Book Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population – Design, Interaction and Technology Acceptance of the 24th HCI International Conference the papers entitled “Senior-Centered Gamification: An Approach for Cyclotourism” and “Senior Citizens as Storytellers: Contribution to Gamified Contexts”. Additionally, on June 29^th, Cláudia presented the papers at the parallel session Web ecologies for Older Adults.

Abstract: There has been an increasing interest in gerontechnology due to the growth of an ageing population and subsequent challenges in interface design development. Methods of user-centered design and gamification have demonstrated to be powerful, leading to an excellent user experience, and also motivating and changing senior citizens’ behaviors. Applying user-centered design and gamification is starting to gain its importance in the design field, but there is still a lack of studies regarding the use of these concepts with senior citizens and/or applied to the cyclotourism context. The goal of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review on user-centered design, user experience and gamification, to outline and propose an approach for senior cyclotourism. The approach is based on user-centered design to senior citizens, followed by gamification design guidelines to the development and testing of products or prototypes. It is recommended that the method should be iterative, unequivocal, and inclusive, performed by a multidisciplinary team and should followed phases of requirement gathering and analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation with subsequent design guidelines. This study may also deliver maneuverable and adaptable guides on how to conduct a method of user-centered design and user experience with gamification for senior citizens applied to other contexts.

Keywords: User-centered design; User experience; Gamification; Senior citizens; Cyclotourism

Abstract: A global demographic turn is observed with senior citizens increasing in number, resulting on wellbeing concerns. That culminates into challenges and opportunities for creating tools, such as digital storytelling and gamification, to promote senior citizens’ interest and motivation to certain activities. While digital storytelling involves the narrative’s potential to facilitate the construction of meaning and sharing experiences with information and communication technologies’ languages, gamification elements can trigger senior citizens’ motivations. However, so far, little attention has been paid to the potential of digital storytelling in gamification. In this context, an iterative approach involving storytelling narratives and gamification should be designed to enhance cyclotourism experiences. The aim of this position paper is to discuss the senior citizens’ digital storytelling applied to gamified cyclotourism to foster participatory strategies and inclusion, exploring their life story while connecting them with others. In specific, it proposes the delivery of a storytelling sessions model to senior citizens integrated with gamification aspects in the cyclotourism context.

Keywords: Senior citizens; Digital storytelling; Gamification; Cyclotourism

The team of the game ‘Mutation Madness’ have dropped a release date for a much-anticipated game about viral infections. The game launches on July 14 for PC gamers and testing open on the same day.

Mutation Madness is the name of a much-anticipated shooter action game in which the player is invited to embark on an adventure with the scientist Mike and help him fight the Madvirus and its variants.

Beyond the releasing date, the team also dropped a trailer, which shows the Mike taking action and fighting off different virus variants. The game was developed in Unity by the master’s students in Multimedia Communication, Frederico Proença and Ana Passos, with the guidance of both researchers from University of Aveiro – DigiMedia and Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária, I.P. – INIAV, I.P.  Figure a shows the digital game announcement.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3C-MBH4nEg

The game is available in the following link and the team is recruiting participants to play the game and assess the game experience on 14^th July at room 40.2.10.

The pilot project “Citizen Arenas for improved environmental quality & resources use in SMART-ER cities” is a multidisciplinary project that brings together six partners of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities ECIU: University of Aveiro, Dublin City University (DCU, Ireland), Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse (INSA; France), Kaunas University of Technology (KTU, Lithuania), Linköping University (LiU, Sweden) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain).

Pedro Beça and Mónica Aresta are two of the researchers of the University of Aveiro team, and will be leading the activities related with Production of digital materials (e.g. games, videos).

More information: https://www.ua.pt/en/noticias/9/75883

Carlos Santos (DigiMedia member) participated in the Switch to Innovation Summit (Valongo, 30^th June), invited by the organization to integrate a Round Table about “Innovative Projects with Technology in Education”.

The DigiMedia researcher presented the Avila Crew project as a way to promote collaboration between students for the development of social skills, but also technical skills. In the second part of his participation he presented the adaptation of this project to the 3^rd Cicle of Basic Education and to Secondary Education, highlighting the Ana Raquel Carvalho’s PhD project.

Other participants at the Round Table were: João Cunha from Agrupamento de Escolas de Freixo; Francisco Gouveia from United Lisbon International School; and Rui Oliva Teles from Escola Superior de Educação do Politécnico do Porto.

This Round Table was moderated by other DigiMedia member, Filipe T. Moreira.

Three members of DigiMedia participated and contributed to the organization of the TIC@Portugal’22 (that took place in Tarouca, 7^th July) – Carlos Santos, David Oliveira and Filipe T. Moreira.

Carlos Santos also presented the project “Espaços de mentoria entre pares no projeto Avila Crew” (Peer mentoring spaces in the Avila Crew project).

Another DigiMedia project presented at the event was “STEAM City Kits – Um projeto para o 1.º CEB” (STEAM City Kits – A project for Primary School), whose authors were Rui Raposo, Mário Vairinhos and Filipe T. Moreira.

TIC@Portugal event aims to reflect on the practices of using ICT in Education. It also aims to hear from educators and teachers who use ICT in the field, through the presentation of their work, and invites experts to contribute the latest knowledge in this field.

This initiative of EDUCOM – APTE (Portuguese Association for Educational Telematics), through its ICT Competence Centre and its Teacher Training Centre, this year had the title: Education, Training and Technologies today: challenges of the Digital Transition.

As in previous years, TIC@Portugal had a national and decentralized character in collaboration with several ICT Competence Centres of ERTE/Direction-General of Education of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Institutions (located in various parts of the country) that integrate and complement, with local and videoconference sessions, involving around 500 participants.

The local event in Tarouca was jointly organised by the CCTICs of the University of Aveiro and the ESE/IP of Viseu.

The book chapter “Playable Characters Attributes: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Theoretical Proposal from Katherine Isbister and Ernest Adams” by Tânia Ribeiro (DigiMedia PhD student), Gonçalo Ribeiro and Ana Isabel Veloso (DigiMedia member) was published within the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2022: HCI in Games pp. 84-100.

Abstract:

Citation:

Ribeiro, T., Ribeiro, G., Veloso, A.I. (2022). Playable Characters Attributes: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Theoretical Proposal from Katherine Isbister and Ernest Adams. In: Fang, X. (eds) HCI in Games. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13334. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05637-6_6

More information available HERE

Catarina Lelis (DigiMedia member) participated in the international conference of the Design Research Society, that took place in Bilbao, from June 25 to July 3, being chair of the panel “Retail and Brand Innovation & Intelligence and presenting the workshop Anticipating the impact of design projects: contributions to the SDGs.

Anticipating the impact of design projects: contributions to the SDGs

Creative Industry professionals often receive several briefs simultaneously, having to priori- tise or choose the one to work on at that moment, usually by considering aspects such as budget, time frame, strength, and longevity of the relationship with the client, but also, the project itself, its message, challenge, values, and purpose. These situations involve difficult decisions and anxious moments, due to the lack of 1) a supporting and defining framework for said decision, and 2) a system for reflecting on how each of the possible projects to choose from can become a more or less impactful, meaningful and pleasurable action.

The Impact Plan operates as a Determine heuristic, which is to happen prior to Discover stage of the Double Diamond framework, for rapid project impact assessment, grounded on surfacing desired identities: the individual’s or a team/brand’s identity, and the identities of those benefiting from the possible outcomes of said projects.

The tool involves a canvas and a deck of 20 cards, aiming at supporting the design-related project or activity selection’s “moment of truth”, namely, when having to choose from a pool of many possibilities; it presents a system for early strategic decision-making, individual or group continuous development planning, and impact-centred thinking. It does so by matching the projects’ anticipated impact with the motivations, capacities, ambitions, and perceptions of value of those involved in its execution, making them consider not only the usual aspects mentioned above for choosing a project, but also their perception that they can (by choosing this project rather than the other), to some extent, contribute to a better world — especially if considering the now in force UN’s 17 Goals for Sustainable Develop- ment that we all should observe.

Within this half-day workshop, delivered exclusively face-to-face, the main concepts and problematic is initially shared with participants, who will be given time to reflect on the construct of purpose and any current generic-societal dilemma (so they can prepare their hikigai), and then a team-based positioning is to be instilled. The teams are then given a few topics of possible design projects, and the time to assess the anticipated impact each project might have on them — teams constituted by individuals with both individual and shared (sometimes conflicting) agendas — and on humanity.

In an event that aims to recognize the work developed by the teams of the different projects involved in this first edition, the final students@DigiMedia #01 event will take place on July 14th at 15h00, in the CCCI auditorium (DeCA, UA).

The event is integrated in the UA Research Summit, and the program will be as follows:

15h00: Opening
Vice-rector for research
DeCA’s direction
DigiMedia Coordination
students@DigiMedia Coordination

15:15: Edition #01 – projects’ presentation

16h45: Preview of students@DigiMedia#02

17h00: Posters presentation and final meeting

students@DigiMedia is an initiative designed with the purpose of fostering students’ participation in scientific research activities.

In the first edition 17 proposals were submitted by 32 researchers. This event will present the 13 ongoing projects, involving 31 students from all study cycles (CTC area) and 24 DigiMedia researchers.

The session is open to all Academic community!

Ana Margarida Almeida and Oksana Tymoshuchuk (DigiMedia members) participated in the Learning Activity, Hilives – Including and Connecting in Higher Education: networking opportunities for independent lives in Reykjavík Iceland, School of Education, University of Iceland, from June 27 to July 1.