Designing the NEADS Information System
Investigating Normal, Fall 2015
This was a project conducted as part of the class Investigating Normal (http://ablersite.org/investigating-normal). In essence, the class looks at medical as well as cultural tools and considers the meaning of a “normal” body and mind. In addition, the class studies and discusses devices —high-tech, low-tech, digital or analog — with these ideas in mind. Through readings, site visits, guest speakers, and projects, the course investigate both traditional and unusual prosthetics and assistive technologies, broadly defined.
Mid-way through the course, we started to work on teams on a project. My team and I chose to work with an organization called NEADS (http://www.neads.org/). NEADS is a service dog organization headquartered in Princeton, MA, that has been training service dogs for veterans and people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities since 1976. Over the years, they have expanded and improved many aspects of their operations. However, they felt that communication between their staff could be made more efficient and reliable. Hence, our task was to study their methods of communication and suggest improvements or changes.
At the end of the project, we ended up prototyping a way to better organize the information they displayed for caring for each dog. We also suggested that they look into email support management systems for better monitoring and handling medical issues and regular medical procedures such as vaccinations for the dogs.
The pictures below show some of the work my team and I did on this project. For more information, feel free to contact me directly at contact@justinpoh.com and I'd be happy to chat more about this project.
Mid-way through the course, we started to work on teams on a project. My team and I chose to work with an organization called NEADS (http://www.neads.org/). NEADS is a service dog organization headquartered in Princeton, MA, that has been training service dogs for veterans and people with a variety of physical and mental disabilities since 1976. Over the years, they have expanded and improved many aspects of their operations. However, they felt that communication between their staff could be made more efficient and reliable. Hence, our task was to study their methods of communication and suggest improvements or changes.
At the end of the project, we ended up prototyping a way to better organize the information they displayed for caring for each dog. We also suggested that they look into email support management systems for better monitoring and handling medical issues and regular medical procedures such as vaccinations for the dogs.
The pictures below show some of the work my team and I did on this project. For more information, feel free to contact me directly at contact@justinpoh.com and I'd be happy to chat more about this project.