Background:
Nova was done in collaboration with Sahlgrenska University Hospital and Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital as a part of a larger design project organised by IT-University of Gothenburg. We were expected to involve information technology as a key component while maintaining a clear focus on the aesthetics of interaction design taking issues such as expression, form and gestalt into account.
Project results:
Nova concept of the ”interactive star heaven” targeted children and teenagers that had to stay in the hospital for a long period of time. With Nova we aimed to improve the quality of life for long term child patients in hospital through usage of IT by making literature and other media types an integrated part of the rehabilitation process. With Nova one can express feelings and thoughts, read and visualize the thoughts of others or relax by listening and viewing various fairy tales, stories and films. Nova was meant to be used at the specialized department at Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital and be an integrated part of the hospital's newly digitalised library. It was exhibited at the Gothenburg International Science Festival 2006. This project was especially rewarding because it had the potential to be used as a product that could help young people improve their quality of life while staying in hospital. It also gave an insight in the special aspects of designing software for children. My roles were: project leadership, conceptual design and user tests.
