Notable Past Research Projects

Interactive media in healthcare spaces: ScreenPlay

Waiting in a doctor’s office or hospital can be a very stressful and fearful experience for children and their families. Some pediatric waiting rooms provide toys to distract children and relieve anxiety and boredom. Traditional toys, however, can spread infections when handled and are often not accessible to children with disabilities who may not have the dexterity or mobility needed to play with them.

We have designed an interactive and inclusive waiting room environment that features a large-scale projection wall that children and adults of all abilities and disabilities can interact with via a pressure-sensitive floor. We call this experience ScreenPlay. We think that ScreenPlay will help reduce waiting room anxiety and improve healthcare experiences for children and their families and have undergone a randomized control trial to find out. Currently, we are exploring sound and musical interactions to augment the visual environment of ScreenPlay and enhance the accessibility of the system. We will also extend concepts developed in ScreenPlay to the creation of accessible opportunities for musical and artistic expression.

We would like to thank the ScreenPlay Team for their collaborative efforts on this project.