Software Pharmacies: Design of Personalized Assistive Devices for People with Cognitive Impairments

在美国，每年有100万成年人被诊断出患有认知障碍(CI)。这些人中的许多人无法在没有帮助的情况下走出住所参加社区或社会活动，这除其他外，导致我们这一日益增长的社会阶层的社会孤立。虽然辅助技术(AT)很有希望帮助CI患者实现独立，但研究表明，由于个人用户目标和能力与系统提供的功能之间(最终)不一致，这些用户经常放弃AT系统。虽然未受损的用户可能会学习并调整他们的行为来利用系统功能，但认知能力的丧失使CI用户无法做到这一点。PI之前在为CI用户开发AT时所做的工作表明，通过根据用户的特定目标和功能个性化AT设计，然后随着这些功能随时间的变化而重新设计，可以缓解设备丢弃的问题。该先前研究的一个结果是用于评估和表征用户的个人和上下文要求(PC-RE)的框架。PI已将此模型应用于构建与用户目标一致的个性化系统，支持对长期需求差异的监控，并指导重新设计。纵向研究表明，这种“评估-个性化-构建-监控-适应”的方法对具有代表性的CI人群是有效的，但不幸的是，它在很大程度上是临时的，显然无法扩展以提供不断增长的CI人群所需的大量个性化系统。在这个项目中，PI将通过开发和正式化一种新的设计方法来解决这些缺陷，该方法支持AT系统快速、经济有效的大规模个性化。这种方法提供了一种新的软件开发模式，被称为软件药房。在操作上，软件药房采用正式的PC-RE规范(处方)，其中包含个人用户的目标、要求和技能，并根据它生成一组满足这些需求的自我监控、自适应的系统软件。基于社会科学、PC-RE、软件产品线和动态需求监控技术的底层开发模型将在反馈/控制开发周期中提供支持快速生产、重新配置和重新设计的能力。PI将使开发模型正式化，将其用于一套旅行辅助设备，并在一组与CI用户进行的纵向研究中经验地测试设计范例的有效性。由此产生的模型、方法、范例和工具将被转移到设计科学和AT开发社区。广泛的影响：研究人员目前缺乏支持有效、低成本软件个性化的方法和工具。这项工作将为个性化AT系统软件的端到端开发提供设计方法、模型、实例和工具。这些人工制品以及来自实验应用的理论、实例和数据将支持设计科学家解决为目前缺乏访问权限(用户适当的技术)或要求适合其个人能力和需求的系统的个人创建软件系统时出现的一系列新问题。研究结果也将有助于商业开发人员开发新系统，更好地支持CI患者的社会融合。

One million adults are diagnosed each year in the United States with cognitive impairments (CI). Many of these individuals are unable to travel unassisted outside their residences to participate in community or social activities, which results among other things in social isolation for this growing segment of our society. While assistive technology (AT) holds great promise for helping people with CI achieve independence, studies show these users frequently abandon AT systems due to (an eventual) misalignment between personal user goals and abilities, and the functionality delivered by the system. Whereas unimpaired users may learn and adapt their behavior to exploit system functionality, loss of cognitive abilities makes this infeasible for CI users. Previous work by the PI in developing AT for CI users has shown that the problem of device abandonment can be mitigated by personalizing AT design to the particular goals and capabilities of the user, and then re-designing as those capabilities change over time. One result of this prior research is a framework for assessing and characterizing the personal and contextual requirements (PC-RE) of the user. The PI has applied this model to build personalized systems that align with user goals, support monitoring for long-term requirements discrepancies, and guide re-design. Longitudinal studies have shown that this "assess-personalize-build-monitor-adapt" approach is effective for representative CI populations, but unfortunately it is largely ad hoc and clearly cannot scale to provide the large numbers of personalized systems needed by the growing CI population. In this project the PI will address these deficiencies by developing and formalizing a novel design approach that supports rapid, cost-effective mass-personalization of AT systems. The approach provides a new software development mode the PI calls a Software Pharmacy. Operationally, a Software Pharmacy takes a formal PC-RE specification (a prescription) embodying the goals, requirements, and skills of an individual user, and from it generates a self-monitoring, self-adaptive set of system software meeting those needs. An underlying development model based on techniques from social science, PC-RE, software product-lines, and dynamic requirements monitoring will provide the capabilities supporting rapid production, re-configuration, and re-design in a feedback/control development cycle. The PI will formalize the development model, operationalize it for a set of travel-assistant devices, and empirically test effectiveness of the design paradigm in a set of longitudinal studies with CI users. Resulting models, methods, exemplars, and tools will be transferred to the Design Science and AT development communities.Broader Impacts: Researchers currently lack both methods and tools supporting effective, low cost software personalization. This work will provide design methods, models, examples, and tools supporting end-to-end development of personalized AT system software. These artifacts as well as the theory, examples, and data from experimental application will support Design Scientists in addressing a wide range of emerging problems in creating software systems for individuals who currently lack access (user-appropriate technology) or demand systems fitted to their individual capabilities and needs. Results will also be useful to commercial developers for developing new systems that better support social integration for people with CI.