Digital health
Digital health promises to support citizens to take control of their health, to help health professionals get treatment to more people more efficiently, and to help health systems cope with increasing loads.
We work with patients, carers, health professionals and medical researchers to design effective, engaging and accessible digital health interventions. Our work spans projects on chronic condition monitoring, mental health support, physiological signals, emotion, behaviour change, and smart hospitals. We believe that it is important that digital health interventions are designed to address users’ needs and be engaging.
Projects
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Orygen Virtual World Project
A virtual world platform bringing to life a new age of digitally enhanced youth mental health care services.
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NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Digital Technology to Transform Chronic Disease Outcomes
An umbrella project involving research groups at multiple universities and hospitals in Australia and internationally. Our goal is to optimise, integrate and scale up digital health approaches to the treatment of chronic disease.
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MRFF Million Minds
Bringing family, community, culture and country to indigenous youth mental health care. A multi-university project based in Victoria and Western Australia that is addressing the crisis in Aboriginal youth mental health. We aim to improve young people’s engagement with mental health services.
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Remote but Connected
A co-created digital platform to enable caregivers to support independent living for people with disability in the face of Covid-19.
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Personal sensing for mental health and wellbeing
We are researching the use of ubiquitous computing and personal device sensing to monitor mental health and to inform mental health care and digital interventions.
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Covid-19 mobility analysis
Our group has analysed the mobility data released by Facebook during the Covid-19 crisis. The analysis shows global trends, and national trends for multiple countries.
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Conceptualising and measuring digital emotion regulation
This project investigates how (and where, when and why) people use digital technologies to shape their emotional states. We plan to develop an evidence-based framework for understanding “digital emotion regulation” in everyday settings.
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Smart Hospital Living Lab
An umbrella program involving multiple technology projects at the University of Melbourne in partnership with hospitals and industry. The main purpose of the lab is to improve how hospitals run.
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VR therapy for youth mental health
We are investigating how virtual reality technologies like HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR can be used to improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Our project involves a range of activities such as designing therapeutic VR experiences, testing their effectiveness and acceptability, and exploring how VR can be incorporated into clinical practice.
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Smartphones for science
We are developing software to enable scientists to use smartphones as a reliable scientific instrument. Our project has a wide range of activities, including how to make it easier to collect data from smartphones, as well as how to analyse sensor data on smartphones and other mobile or wearable gadgets.
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Moderated online social therapy for youth mental health
This long-running project based at Orygen Youth Health is building and testing online mental health interventions. Our flagship platform is currently being rolled out Victoria-wide to help young people during the Covid pandemic. Staff: Simon D’Alfonso, Reeva Lederman, Greg Wadley. Funding source: Victorian Government, NHMRC
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Western e-HEaLth patient information portal for Pregnancy (WeHELP)
This project, based at the Melbourne Medical School, designed and trialled a smartphone-based pregnancy support intervention for women and families from culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Staff: Wally Smith, Greg Wadley
Contact
People
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Tilman Dingler, Lecturer in Human Computer Interaction -
Vassilis Kostakos, Professor of Human Computer Interaction -
Simon D’Alfonso, Lecturer in Digital Health -
Jorge Goncalves, Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction -
Wally Smith, Associate Professor -
Benjamin Tag, Lecturer
News
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Making Sense of Emotion Sensing
Members of the HCI group, along with international colleagues, are organising a workshop for 2021 Ubicomp on quantifying human emotions.
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Simon D’Alfonso awarded Cisco Research Grant
A new grant will support research involving the use of smartphones to monitor and predict mental health conditions.
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Papers for CHI 2021 conference
We are proud to announce the acceptance of a series of papers from our researchers and their collaborators.
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New NHMRC grant on Smarthomes for heart failure
A new project will develop smarthome technology to help heart failure patients manage their chronic condition.
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Interactive tool helps physios with complex fine motor skills
A new device is helping student physios at the University of Melbourne to improve their complex fine motor skills.
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IDL researchers to present at esteemed CHI 2020 conference
The 2020 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2020), is taking place between 25–30 April in Oahu, Hawai’i, USA.
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IDL researchers contribute to successful OzCHI’19
Presenters and attendees of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (OzCHI’19) met on Perth’s sandy shores between 3–5 December 2019.
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Using 3D scanning to optimise the process of prosthesis fabrication
We are working on a user-centred design process to improve the process of prosthetic limb fittings.
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Our researchers take home two awards at UbiComp 2019
PhD Candidate Zhanna Sarsenbayeva received the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award and a Distinguished Paper Award was received by a group of researchers.
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HCI Lab Open House
To mark the completion of the new lab, we held an Open House.
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New Centre for Research Excellence funded by NHMRC
Researchers from Human Computer Interaction will play a key role in a new NHMRC-funded Centre for Research Excellence in Interactive Digital Technology to Transform Australia’s Chronic Disease Outcomes.
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The future of operating rooms
Optimising workflows for effective patient care.
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Augmented Reality projects in our lab
The Augmented Studio project has provided a breakthrough in technologically-facilitated learning.
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Double success for IDL in the 2019 ARC Discovery Grants
Every year, the Australian Research Council (ARC), the facilitators of the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), award funding to exceptional research projects.
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CHI 2019: Strong participation by the University of Melbourne
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, also known as CHI 2019, is the flagship annual conference..
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Room for innovation: lab upgrades
Human Computer Interaction has received a tech-powered update to our research workspace for graduate researchers.
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Augmented Studio presented at Melbourne Knowledge Week
So, what if you could view how your body looked and moved internally – externally?