Evaluating Personalized Pervasive Health Technology—But How?

Examines the concept of "thorough evaluations.” For example, are authors supposed to show clinical evidence for the health efficacy of their technology? Or, are they supposed to show that the technology is technically sound and working? Or, that it is secure and has appropriate privacy-protection of sensitive personal data? Or, that the technology is usable and user-friendly for the users? Or, ....? These questions touch upon a more fundamental question, namely how researchers can evaluate novel ubiquitous computing technology in the health domain in a manner that allows them to make meaningful claims about their utility and argue for their scientific contributions in the broader health technology domain. Evaluation of health technology has always been difficult and subject to significant scientific disputes. From a technological perspective, we are mainly interested in the design of novel technology and understanding how it works under different circumstances, while gradually and iteratively improving on its technical features and capabilities. This calls for formative evaluation methods, which help us understand how the technology works and how it can be improved according to a set of design goals. In this approach, we seek to understand the technology and look “into” it, i.e., a white-box evaluation strategy.