Therapist-centered requirements: A multi-method approach of requirement gathering to support rehabilitation gaming

Abstract

Brain injuries (BI) are recognized as a major public health issue. Many therapists include commercial motion-based videogames in their therapy sessions to help make rehabilitation exercises fun and engaging. Our initial exploratory work exposed a need for tools to help therapists make evidence-based decisions when choosing commercial motion-games for their patients who have had a BI. Targeting this need, we are gathering requirements for a case-based recommender (CBR) system that will act as a decision tool for therapists. In this paper, we describe our ongoing work as a case study that illustrates our multi-method approach of requirement elicitation for the CBR system. Our approach is comprised of four overlapping steps: (1) interviews with therapists, (2) onsite observations of therapy game sessions, (3) diary studies in which therapists record detailed information about game sessions, and (4) a user study of a CBR prototype interface. Leveraging direct interaction with end users (i.e., therapists), this case study demonstrates requirements gathering techniques to address needs of a special population (i.e., therapists who work with patients who had BIs) in a specialized context (i.e., inpatient rehabilitation using motion-based video games).