Your virtual buddy: UU

Background

The project was inspired by the documentary film Life Matters (2019). It depicts a dream about child patients fighting against cancer in a gamified way in a Chinese public hospital. Besides the side effects of treatments, children in long-term hospitalization suffer from unimaginable torture (fear, loneliness, loss of control, and despair). I hope that through the design, I can find a solution that could help them alleviate the pain during the treatment process.

Problem

• In this project, we decided to focus on leukemia because it is the most common pediatric cancer, comprising 25% of all cancer types.
• The 5-year relative high survival rate of leukemia is 85%, which means they have a high chance of returning to normal life after hospitalization.

According to our research, child patients with Leukemia may have a lot of problems and difficulties during long-term hospitalization in Chinese public hospital:

1. Long treatment: Most patients take a total treatment about 3 years to get healed.
2. Restrained activities: Get treatment in an unfamiliar environment with restrictions.
3. Psychological risk: Long-term hospitalization may cause isolation.
4. Social demand: Need the company of friends to share stories and get support.

Solution

We designed the virtual character and user interfaces for the XR app with design system. For the 2023 PICO DevJam hackathon, we also made a prototype implemented in VR headset using unity: