Facilitating Communication in People with Aphasia, Due to Left Hemisphere Damage, and Resulting Loss of Motor Function.
As a culmination of the UX Design program at MICA, this thesis is being assembled with a focus on finding a solution, through UX research, to a significant “real-world” problem. This article covers the tentative, initial ideation phase and will be of most interest to cohorts, instructors, and those with vested curiosity toward the subject matter.
Project
My grandfather suffered several strokes in the last eight years of his life. With each successive episode, he incrementally lost abilities most of us take for granted each day. First, his ability to walk, then, his ability to talk or produce written communication. My family liked to think that he still understood us when we told him we loved him and that he was taken care of by the nursing home staff in our absence, and did not feel relegated to painful loneliness in the twilight of his existence. His eyes still twinkled, and every now and again, he would crack a smile. Maybe wishful thinking.
Operating on the premise that the glimmer in my grandfather’s eyes and his modestly toothy grin were rooted in sentient perception and response, it would have been nice to have formed a meaningful communication loop with him; to have known what he was thinking; if he needed anything, was afraid, or lonely. That is the problem that beckons. Something that might help someone, exiled to the confines of their mind, unable to interact with the world around them.
A personal toughest endeavor, the goal of this project is to identify jobs to be done and introduce solutions to as many facets of those as possible. The end-goal being to endow, if only a modicum, an ability for people with aphasia and loss of writing capabilities to communicate again.
Ascribing meaning to non-communicative actions, creating false hope, or an illusion of communication is not the goal of this research.
Target Audience
Users that might benefit from this effort are caretakers, family, and people unable to speak, write or sign, who have an awareness of their surroundings and the ability to manipulate and understand assistive technology and actual or interpreted communication from another party.
Spill-over benefits might be things like recording and storing communications for caretakers or family/friends to review. This might help build a profile of likes/dislikes, how often communications were initiated, and the quality/outcome of each session.
Key Stakeholders
People unable to verbally communicate, write or sign.
Stroke patients, or others with traumatic brain injuries.
Caretakers, family members, and friends.
Medical and psychology professionals.
Assumptions
This solution would be used in cases where more invasive interventions, like brain‐computer interfaces (BCIs), are not practical or not effective.
There are varying degrees of aphasia, and one solution may not assist all equally.
Researching this level of assistive technology is novel, meaningful, and is not duplicating any known efforts toward advancements in communicating with people with aphasia.
Neuralink and other procedures may eclipse the need for this research’s level of solution at some point.
Goals and Outcomes
My personal goal would be to provide a very low-cost, non-invasive solution.
Stakeholders’ would mirror my own goals, tacking on the emotional aspects of possibly being able to have meaningful dialogue with their family members, patient, and/or friends, which could not easily be assigned adequate tangible value.
Medium
In this ideation phase, time was taken to brainstorm, and layout ideas into a storyboard:
