Representations of psychological function based on ontology for collaborative design of peer support services for diabetic patients

Abstract

This paper proposes representations of psychological functions of online peer support services for diabetic patients and shows how the representations contribute to its collaborative design. It is important to explicitly represent the design of the psychological functions for sharing, discussing and revising the peer support services with patients and medical professionals. However, the design of the psychological functions remains highly implicit. In order to make the representation clearer, the conceptual definition of the psychological functions is necessary. This paper starts with what to design in the design processes of peer support services. Next, the concepts of psychological functions are analysed based on ontology. The design of psychological functions is represented based on the definition, and the online peer support services are designed. The trial use of the service and focus groups held with patients are explained to show how the designed functions and peer support services are shared, used, discussed, and revised. Lastly, contribution of the representations to the collaborative design is discussed.