The Usability of a Tabletop Application for Neuro-Rehabilitation from Therapists' Point of View

Abstract

The success of virtual environments in neuro-rehabilitation crucially relies on the acceptance of its users. Thus, in the development of virtual rehabilitation environments usually a user-centered design process is followed. Most approaches concentrate on the patient as end user, however, the target group might be two-fold. The fun.tast.tisch. project aims at the development of a tabletop-based software system for therapists and patients as supporting means in conventional neuro-rehabilitation. Both target groups are involved in the development process; different studies are conducted to ensure the therapeutic adequateness and the system's usability. The latter is especially important for therapists as they are responsible for navigating through the modules and configuring them for the patients individually. This paper describes two fun.tast.tisch. modules that have been evaluated regarding usability for therapists in a longer-term study in summer 2013 in a rehabilitation hospital, and presents the study's results.