Developing interactive interfaces for people with developmental disabilities to be used in Snoezelen environments
Abstract
Much of the equipment used in Snoezelen environments today is not interactive, and the equipment that is interactive can be hard for the user to access. By having interactive equipment in Snoezelen environments the user gets to experience and hopefully better understand the concept of cause and effect.
The purpose of this project has been to develop an interactive interface that can appeal to a wide range of users. By a small effort they should be able to get a response from the interface. To do this, different methods have been used, such as qualitative research methods and bodystorming. The work was developed following a user-centered design method and an iterative design process, where Snoezelen users in two different Snoezelen institutions in the Ă–resund Region participated.
The interactive interface is called Glownado. It is quite small and allows the user to interact in different ways, it can be approached, put into motion, and it has different tactile structure that the user can touch. This makes it easy to interact with Glownado, in a way that suits the user's needs and abilities. The feedback the user gets is in form of wind, sound and light, and creates a multisensory stimulation localized to one area. Depending on how the user interacts with it, it has different behaviors to respond to the specific action. It is important that the user gets an immediate response to their action, to understand that they are the ones making it happen. Wind has never been implemented in interactive Snoezelen equipment before. It creates a surprise moment, which makes the users curious to continue explore.