This protocol facilitates the integration of a self-developed application and wearable devices to measure multiple dimensional states, including psychological, physiological, and environmental data. This is a proven technology to assess how landscape impacts human health and wellbeing. Flexible tasks and functions are provided in the smartphone and smartwatch application to measure different types of human states and reactions.
Now, thousands of people can be engaged in research, placing very little burden on them while producing a rich trove of data for landscape and urban-planning scholars. This method can be adopted in outdoor recreation and human health research. It can also be used in other fields that investigate relationships between human health and the environment, showing the flexibility of the application.
Users may struggle due to being unfamiliar with the app and devices. This can be solved by going through the protocol presented in this article. This protocol requires using several tools including webpages, smartphones, and smartwatches.
Therefore, visual demonstrations can help users and researchers get started quickly. To begin, log into the HealthCloud app backend website. Go to Admin management in the app database and add a new field name at the Set Field to mark the data collected during the experiment.
Then go to Configuration and click on the Select file button to upload the questionnaires. Set the time interval by choosing the number of minutes in the period of pop quiz. Download the HealthCloud app from the app store.
Ensure the tools are ready for use. Have good battery life, GPS functionality, and a stable internet connection on the site. Then log into the app on the phone by creating an account.
Ensure all realtime information, including heart rate, location, elevation, weather, the distance that the user has moved since starting, and duration since the app started are successfully collected on the app's main page on the smartphone. Press Set Measurements on the Settings page. Then select the Field Name and identify the participants according to their test number.
Before the walk, give the participants the following instructions. Verbally instruct the participants on how to use both the smartwatch and smartphone for proper assessment. Ask them to press start on the smartwatch to collect physiological and environmental information.
Once the tasks are received, the participants must follow the instructions on the smartwatch. For the pop quiz task, ask the participants to rate the statements using one to five stars to answer the psychological scale items and press send to complete this step. Next, the participants will receive a photo taking task on their smartwatch.
Instruct the participants to open the HealthCloud app on the phone and follow the instructions for the photo-taking task. The participants will also receive a Stroop Test followed by a voice task on their smartwatch. Ask the participants to follow the instructions on the phone to complete the Stroop Test and then the voice task.
For the HRV task, instruct the participants to open the breath app and click on start. The HRV data will be uploaded. Finally, for the SPO2 task, ask the participants to open the Blood Oxygen app on the smartwatch and click on Start.
The result will be uploaded. After the walk, collect the devices from the participants and hit Quit Calculate to end the experiment. Then log into the backend website.
Extract the research data from the data sheet by filtering the time, field, and tester ID.Press Export CSV to download the dataset and perform descriptive statistical analysis using statistical software. A dataset of 385 students from National Taiwan University were recruited for this study. The participants were between the ages of 20 and 36.
Regarding their psychological states, 514 ratings of preference, 548 ratings of being away, and 523 ratings of fascination were collected. For the physiological responses, that is, heart rate, 14, 253 data points were collected. The following environmental information was collected, 14, 253 data points related to GPS latitude and longitude, 14, 253 related to temperature, 14, 253 related to relative humidity, 14, 253 related to wind speed, and 12, 232 related to wind degree.
With these data, variables from different dimensions can be statistically analyzed to verify the relationships among them. Consider whether the activities intended to be included are suitable in the experiment since their intensity may affect the accuracy of the measurement. It is recommended that the researchers follow the protocol instructions to guide the participants in the experiment and to reduce the novelty effect of the devices and the application.
This method can be used to generate and collect additional information. For example, photographs, sound decibels, or GPS location can be used to analyze the quality of the physical environment. The main purpose of this method is to provide an efficient way to measure real-time psychological responses, physiological responses, and ambient environmental information.
Only a few previous studies have managed to provide frequent sectional data points. Therefore, the relationships among the dimensions can be discussed in greater detail.
