Project Goals and Objectives

The goal of this project is to design a health focused learning technology that can inform the graduate student population at the University of Florida about communicable diseases. We want to develop a technology that specifically addresses the needs of graduate students at the University of Florida to contribute to their overall health and wellbeing to improve their productivity.

Domain and Context

Germs are simply everywhere in our world. Being exposed to these germs increases the risk of catching communicable disease. So, how do you want to prevent these diseases? Do you even know what to do if you caught one? Our website wants to educate students seeking a higher education about how to prevent these diseases, the specific medications for each one, and their symptoms.

Educational Probelm

Through this technology, it would be less likely for graduate students to become ill and forced to miss class or hours in the lab. If a graduate student is constantly behind on work this can lead to lack of motivation, self-doubt, and essentially a withdrawal from the program; if they believe that too much progress has been loss. Therefore, by addressing this lack of awareness of communicable diseases within the graduate school community and tailoring this technology to their specific needs, this will lead to a ripple effect of benefits for the student and their associated communities.

Solution Vision

A general overview of what communicable diseases are:

• This term may be unfamiliar to many students and the term diseases has potential to frighten users. Therefore, a clear definition can calm nerves and teach users that were unaware of this term new terminology.
• Inform the user that there are different types of communicable diseases, such as viral, bacterial, etc.

A list of top 5 communicable diseases to be aware of

Preventative measure that should be taken to avoid these diseases

Symptoms associated with these diseases

• Early stage symptoms
• Most common symptoms

Cures/Mitigation techniques

• Vaccines
• Over the counter medicine
• If the cure requires a prescription, inform the user to see their doctor

Interactive Map

• The map will be able to show the users if there is a current outbreak and where

Current News Update

• This will provide the user with information being displayed on the media concerning diseases and if there are any updates that the user should be aware of.

Social Component

• Allow individuals to leave comments that can contribute to the list of symptoms and cures
• Allow individuals to share any symptoms they have for specific disease so that the most significant symptoms for each disease can be recognized
• Leads to more engagement within the community and awareness
• Future questions that the designers did not anticipate can still be addressed.
• Individuals are able to create a user profile to access the information they frequently check more readily and to improve suggestions based upon learning from user input.