Baby steps: evaluation of a system to support record-keeping for parents of young children

Parents of young children often want to keep a variety of records on their children's early years, for the purposes of preservation of memories or at the request of their pediatrician. However, time constraints, motivation, and forgetfulness may hinder their ability to keep consistent records. We developed a system, Baby Steps, which is designed to improve the record-keeping process. In this paper, we present the results of a 3-month deployment study of this technology with 8 families and their pediatricians. The study showed that when compared to a control condition, experimental design features of Baby Steps encouraged parents to more frequently collect and review records, provided higher confidence in reporting, and improved parent-pediatrician communication.

[1]  Margaret E. Morris,et al.  Embedded Assessment: Overcoming Barriers to Early Detection with Pervasive Computing , 2005, Pervasive.

[2]  Panos Markopoulos,et al.  Busy families' awareness needs , 2009, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[3]  R. Shore.  Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development , 1997 .

[4]  Marshini Chetty,et al.  Grow and know: understanding record-keeping needs for tracking the development of young children , 2007, CHI.

[5]  M. Dignan,et al.  Assessment of the patient-doctor interaction scale for measuring patient satisfaction. , 1992, Patient education and counseling.

[6]  Allison Druin,et al.  Technology probes: inspiring design for and with families , 2003, CHI '03.

[7]  Stefanie Tellex,et al.  The Human Speechome Project , 2006, EELC.

[8]  Mikael B. Skov,et al.  Mediated intimacy in families: understanding the relation between children and parents , 2006, IDC '06.

[9]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[10]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  The Family Video Archive: an annotation and browsing environment for home movies , 2003, MIR '03.

[11]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[12]  Linda J. Ferrier,et al.  visiBabble for reinforcement of early vocalization , 2004, Assets '04.

[13]  David Frohlich,et al.  The Memory Box , 2000 .

[14]  Sunny Consolvo,et al.  The CareNet Display: Lessons Learned from an In Home Evaluation of an Ambient Display , 2004, UbiComp.

[15]  Kori Inkpen Quinn,et al.  Yours, Mine and Ours? Sharing and Use of Technology in Domestic Environments , 2007, UbiComp.

[16]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Opportunities for Pervasive Computing in Chronic Cancer Care , 2009, Pervasive.

[17]  Brooke E. Foucault.  Designing Technology for Growing Families , 2005 .

[18]  E. Burguete,et al.  • Brassard, M. & Ritter, D. 1994, GE Capital Services Memory Jogger II, Goal/QPC, , 2007 .

[19]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Getting into the Living Memory Box: Family archives & holistic design , 2003, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[20]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Designing toys with automatic play characterization for supporting the assessment of a child's development , 2008, IDC.

[21]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Experience buffers: a socially appropriate, selective archiving tool for evidence-based care , 2005, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[22]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  "LINC-ing" the family: the participatory design of an inkable family calendar , 2006, CHI.