fun.tast.tisch. – A User-Centered Interdisciplinary Design Process for a Novel Approach to Neuro-Rehabilitation

We describe findings on a user-centered design process supported by an interdisciplinary team of experts with the aim of introducing interactive tabletops into the process of neuro-rehabilitation. We show why it is beneficial to introduce tabletops into the therapy domain and thus increase individuals’ possibilities of improving the quality of their everyday lives. Due to the manifold tasks in different areas of expertise, it was essential to conduct an interdisciplinary team whose members have both experience in therapy and tech-nical backgrounds as well as knowledge of how to mediate between those fields. To illustrate our ap-proach, we show the process in more detail starting from users’ requirements via the shared making of design decisions and finally leading to implementing prototypes which were used for continuous evaluation during the entire process. We conclude with our view of the usefulness and effectiveness of the two as-pects user-centricity and interdisciplinarity when the project’s aim is to ensure a high level of accounting for users’ requirements especially in a field where the users have distinct limitations.