
Health & Wellbeing papers
Chairs
Dr. Evdokimos I. Konstantinidis & Prof. Dr. An Jacobs
Submissions to this track deal with health and/or wellbeing-related Living Lab research and practice. This includes eHealth, Health Living Labs, patient-centric innovation, …
Citizen Science in Urban Living Labs for Rainfall and Flood Monitoring
by Carina Veeckman and Laura Temmerman
Category: Full Research
Keywords:
- Citizen Science
- Urban Living Labs
- Flood Risk Management
- Environmental Monitoring
Abstract. The participation of the general public in flood risk management is a recent phenomenon. Cities are exploring different participatory mechanisms to reinforce the rights of the public to access information about flood risks and to have a say in the planning processes. Through developments in sensing technology, data processing and visualizations, citizen science is emerging as a promising field for the general public to participate in scientific research that informs policy making. This paper reviews the emergence of citizen participation in rainfall and flood monitoring initiatives and explores the role of Urban Living Labs to complement the development and knowledge generation of flood services. Data were collected through a comparative case study of diverse citizen participation projects for monitoring floods in and beyond Europe. The projects are compared on the level of typology and actor network.
Further, lessons learned are drawn from the FloodCitiSense project that involved three Urban Living Labs in Rotterdam, Birmingham and Brussels. The FloodCitiSense project engages citizens in the flood precaution phase through the analysis of crowdsourced information and invests in awareness building around pluvial floods through a mobile and web-based application. Through a facilitated co-creation approach the particular role of citizens in flood risk management in the three cities was validated and put into practice. The discussion reflects about the delineation and interplay of citizen science in Urban Living Labs for environmental monitoring, and its advantages and challenges.
Carina Veeckman
Principal investigator on citizen science

Carina Veeckman
Principal investigator on citizen scienceCarina graduated cum laude as Master in Communication Sciences (New Media & Society) at the Ghent University in 2011, and also has a bachelor degree in Communication Management (PR & Events, Artevelde Hogeschool, 2006). Carina started working at SMIT in October 2011. She is the principal investigator on citizen science in the Data, Governance, and communities unit, together with a small team of researchers. Her main research interests are in the field of living lab research in the smart city domain, measuring impact and outcomes of (digital) social innovation, citizen science, engagement and behavioral change research related to environmental issues (flooding, air quality, circular economy, etc.). She is also a member of the working group ‘Communication and Engagement’ of the Flemish Knowledge Centre on citizen science in Flanders (SCIVIL), and part of its steering committee.
Social prescribing and citizen science
by Sonja Pedell
Category: Full Research
Keywords:
- Social prescribing
- citizen science,
- co-design
- health services
Abstract. Social prescribing is a new concept in Europe aiming for a more holistic health approach to increase social integration. Through a feasibility study on introducing social prescription in Australia we demonstrate that a bottom-up approach is necessary to understand how to involve healthcare providers, staff, and service users in designing a social prescribing service. We framed the involvement of the multiple stakeholder groups as one informed by citizen science. This way it was possible to understand how to overcome organisational barriers of applying this concept and make most of existing staff and resources in the existing service landscape of the collaboration partner. The result is a concept proposal that suggests clear pathways for social prescription based on the healthcare providers’ and their stakeholders’ values and needs as well as recommendations for co-evaluation in the future. We suggest that our approach can inform other health related services giving future stakeholders a stronger voice not only in the design and implementation but also maintaining health services that extend the traditional medical model of health.
Sonja Pedell
Swinburne University of Technology / Future Self and Design Living Lab

Sonja Pedell
Swinburne University of Technology / Future Self and Design Living LabAssociate Professor Sonja Pedell is Director of Swinburne University’s Future Self and Design Living Lab. The FSD Living Lab has core development capabilities in the area of innovative socio-technical systems and design solutions for health and wellbeing with a focus on the ageing population and dementia. Prior to taking up this role at Swinburne, Dr Pedell completed a Masters of Psychology from the Technical University of Berlin and was employed as an Interaction Designer, Usability Consultant and Product Manager in industry for several years.
Evaluation and Design guidelines for behaviour change in renewable energy communities
by Olivia De Ruyck
Category: Research-in-progress
Keywords:
- Energy consumption feedback
- prototype
- energy community
- feedback
- information
- interface
- behaviour
change
Abstract. Energy Communities, where energy can be produced, stored locally and shared with others, are crucial to meet challenging climate objectives. However, currently residents of shared energy projects receive no feedback about the real-time consumption in the building and they cannot adjust their behaviour according to the needs of the community. In this research in progress we describe the "Mona Prisa", an interactive prototype for feedback in Energy Communities. The prototype is located at the entrance of a building and displays energy, water and heat flows. After the design phase (based on the results from 51 interviews), this research in progress wants to evaluate the prototype, search for optimal interfaces and define design guidelines for interfaces in Energy Communities.
Olivia De Ruyck
Researcher and doctoral student

Olivia De Ruyck
Researcher and doctoral studentOlivia De Ruyck graduated in 2007 as a Master in Product development (Artesis Antwerpen) and in 2008 as a Master in Marketing Management (Vlerick Leuven Ghent management school). At UGent she is part of the imec-mict-UGent and IDC team in Kortrijk. Here, she works as a researcher and doctoral student within the domain of user research and internet of things. Prior to her job at UGent, Olivia has an experience of over 9 years as an innovation consultant for over 30 companies in different fields. She gained this experience at Indra Europraxis in Barcelona; later she moved back to Belgium and worked for Verhaert New Products and Services in Antwerp. Olivia likes to be in an international environment and is fluent in Dutch, French, English and Spanish.
Designing Ubiquitous Artifacts For Digital Wellbeing
by Suhaib Aslam
Category: Practitioners papers
Keywords:
- Digital wellbeing
- responsible design
- human-data interaction
- ambient interfaces
- screen time
- tangible data
- ubiquitous technology
Abstract. Uncontrolled, brief smartphone revisitations are a grave, prevalent issue. Much of typical smartphone usage is shown to consist of short, repetitive revisitation habits which can have dire consequences for mental health. Despite its prevalence, uncontrolled revisitation remains largely untapped in digital wellbeing interventions. This is the case despite the degree of control over device usage forming the centrality of digital wellbeing.
Suhaib Aslam
Postgraduate student (Researcher/designer/scientist)

Suhaib Aslam
Postgraduate student (Researcher/designer/scientist)An aspiring researcher/designer/scientist, Suhaib is currently a postgraduate student who’s curiously delving into his interests in research through design, artificial intelligence and the combination of all things design and computing. He is a Stanford University trained innovation fellow and works part-time as a service designer. He is passionate about the intersection between humans, technology, design and any other contextual factors that influence the relationship between these. He is really motivated about building academic value, and loves attending design conferences. Suhaib lives to transcend and to learn everything he can get his hands on –whilst working in teams that engage in exploratory, human-centered research experiments for building rich user experiences. He’s striving to become a new kind of researcher/designer/technologist: One who is a socially engaged, entrepreneurial problem-solver who is focused on high impact designerly innovations for conquering sociotechnical problems.