The Digital Health Laboratory (DHL) at the Open University was founded in 2020 on a mission to advance the art and science of designing interactive technological systems to support the health and wellbeing of people. This mission underpins the fundamental aims of the DHL research program:

• Informing the development of interactive technology to support and improve the health and wellbeing of individuals.
• Understanding how interactive technologies can support a community-based approach to health and wellbeing.
• Developing user-centred approaches, including theories and methods, to inform the design of health-related technology.

The lab brings together researchers in HCI, CSCW, machine learning and software engineering, and we have strong collaborative links with healthcare professionals and psychologists. This gives the lab an inter-disciplinary approach to addressing health concerns. Part of our mission is to make a difference in the real world, and we believe that applied research is the best way of achieving this. Our research program comprises a series of applied projects, which tackle a variety of real life problems from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. See the project page for more details.

We regularly publish our work in the key HCI and Digital Health academic venues, including TOCHI, CHI, CSCW, JMIR and IJHCS.

Collaborators

One of the key strengths of the Digital Health Lab is the strong collaborative links with healthcare organisations. Some of our key collaborators include: