On 4 Jan 2018, at 20:25, John Vines <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi all,

 

At Northumbria University, we are seeking a candidate for a funded PhD student to explore the design of near-future data-driven health services. We are seeking someone with a background in interaction or product design or human-computer interaction. The studentship will involve working in a multi-disciplinary team with colleagues from psychology and health sciences, and will have exciting prospects for working with heath service and industrial collaborators.

 

See below for more details, and please do get in touch with me if you would like more information.

 

https://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=92626

 

Deadline: 28th January 2018

Start date: 1st October 2018

Stipend: Funded for three years at RCUK rates (for 2017/18, this is £14,553 pa) and payment of fees

 

Project Description:

 

Fatigue maybe thought of as a temporary inability to maintain optimal cognitive, physical or emotional performance. Its onset is gradual, and may be caused by many different factors ranging from stress, over or under-stimulation, depression, mineral or vitamin deficiency, to other medical conditions, pain, and much more. If not treated appropriately it may develop into chronic fatigue that is less transient and more debilitating. In a society where lines between work and home are increasingly blurred, fatigue – or a feeling of being tired all the time – is an emerging grand challenge for citizen health and wellbeing. This PhD studentship will focus on the co-creation, design and evaluation of new data-driven services that enable people suffering from fatigue to track, understand and make sense of how their symptoms relate to this complexity of factors.

 

Over the last several years there has also been a rapid growth in availability of mobile, wearable and sensor technologies that enable people to collect data and track aspects of their day to day lives. “Personal informatics” and the “quantified self” have become particularly prominent in promoting engagement from individuals in their personal health, wellbeing and self-care. There are thousands of applications that promise to help people in the self-management and monitoring of symptoms. However there has been little exploration of the design of data-driven tools that enable people to understand why their symptoms manifest in the first place, and how they may be related to their physical activity, routines and the qualities of the environments they spend time in. There is, therefore, an important role for these technologies to support individuals in detecting, understanding and preventing fatigue; but doing so requires a shift in how these technologies are designed, from seeing people as objects from which data is collected, to being active agents where these digital tools promote the making sense of, analysis of and reasoning around this data by patients in relation to their felt experiences of fatigue.

 

This project will take a research through design approach, focusing on the creation of prototype digital tools and probes that are co-designed and evaluated with people experiencing the early signs of fatigue. The project will initially focus on the creation of digital probes that promote simple data collection activities for participants. This will then be extended to focus on simple visualisation probes that allow participants to connect data together and make sense of it in their own terms. Findings from these early activities will be used to create a final digital toolkit for making sense of fatigue data, which will be evaluated with participants over an extended period of time. Outcomes for this PhD might include new prototype digital artefacts that help individuals understand and manage their fatigue symptoms, insights around the design of human-data interfaces, or new frameworks for future data-driven health and wellbeing services.

 

It is expected that the candidate would have a strong undergraduate degree and/or Master’s degree in a design or related field, with expertise in interaction design or interactive media. They should also have a strong sense of the value of participatory and collaborative approaches to design, and a keen interest in developing skills in qualitative research. This studentship will be supervised by Prof. John Vines and Dr. Abigail Durrant, and will be conducted in collaboration with the Newcastle Fatigue Clinic and Philips Design in The Netherlands.

 

Enquiries regarding this studentship should be made to: John Vines –[log in to unmask]

 

Eligibility and How to Apply:

 

Please note eligibility requirement:

• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement. 

• Appropriate IELTS score, if required.

• Applicants cannot apply for this funding if currently engaged in Doctoral study at Northumbria or elsewhere.

 

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see:

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/

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