{"id":77783,"date":"2026-04-24T13:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77783"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:03:11","slug":"playful-health-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/playful-health-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Play can improve health. Tech is making that\u00a0happen.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new grant from the Flinn Foundation\u00a0is allowing computer scientist Jared Duval<\/strong>\u00a0to expand his work around making healthcare technology both effective and fun.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duval, an assistant professor\u00a0in\u00a0the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, won the two-year, $300,000 grant to support his work in health-related research that\u00a0benefits\u00a0Arizona. His far-reaching work, which includes everything from helping people with disabilities better use their technology to tracking internet access in rural Arizona to speech therapy, all comes out of the\u00a0<\/span>Playful Health Technology Lab<\/span><\/a>, which takes a broad view of health.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly, we think of our work as the intersection of those three words,\u201d Duval said. \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0pretty open\u00a0with the definition of those words. We work on things that matter most to the community.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What happens in the Playful Health Tech lab<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"StudentsDuval and his lab members, which includes 15 graduate and undergraduate students, design tech that can be used with little knowledge,\u00a0that\u00a0can be adapted to different users\u2019 needs and that uses low-cost, ubiquitous technologies that\u00a0just about everyone\u00a0can access.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe design, develop and test playful probes that are designed in a way to target a specific health outcome, but do so in a way that\u00a0requires\u00a0the least amount of engineering possible,\u201d Duval said. \u201cWe design intentionally with ambiguity built in, so that way people can appropriate the technology for their own use cases. It makes it flexible,\u00a0so it can work in lots of contexts and lots of places.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The projects have dual outcomes: The first is improved health for the users and their community. The second is data for the researchers and a better understanding of population health, because\u00a0those\u00a0data\u00a0inform\u00a0future projects and areas of study.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have very many insights into what happens at home,\u201d\u00a0Duval\u00a0said. \u201cWe want to know how people are trying to improve their health and how we bridge\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0happening at home and\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0happening in the clinic.\u00a0So\u00a0we collect data from these technology probes to gain\u00a0a\u00a0better understanding into what interventions work in the homes.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His work\u00a0also\u00a0includes cultural probes to better understand how tech needs to be designed\u2014in one way for\u00a0Din\u00e9\u00a0people, in another for children with autism.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what does Internet access have to do with health?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Jared
Jared Duval<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NetGauge, one of the lab\u2019s ongoing projects,\u00a0allows users to create\u00a0games\u00a0using Twine, a simple\u00a0game-building\u00a0tool\u00a0that gets players out and\u00a0moving\u00a0to specific places. In each location, the player collects\u00a0a measurement of the broadband coverage in that place\u00a0to progress in the game. This has meant hundreds of people are roving around rural Arizona, collecting data on where they can and\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0get broadband.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This matters, Duval said, because broadband coverage is spotty in the western United States. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has coverage maps, but the companies overstate their coverage. The only way to challenge those maps is to\u00a0demonstrate, using data collected\u00a0from multiple people\u00a0in the same places over time, that those areas\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have coverage. Which is exactly what this game is doing every time someone plays.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInternet is a structural determinant of health,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have\u00a0internet, you\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0do telemedicine, you\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0gain access to jobs, you\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0do remote education. Internet is a human right, and people\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0always see it that way.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Much of his work at NAU\u00a0also has\u00a0been funded by the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative and supported by the investigator core.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Learn more about other projects in the Playful Health Technology Lab.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reaching out to the community<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Duval\u2019s newest project, which is possible because of the Flinn funding, is the inaugural Hozhoni Game-o-Rama, a collaboration with Hozhoni Foundation, a local disability service provider. They will invite all of Hozhoni\u2019s clients and their families, staff and the board of directors to a day of exploration and experimentation. Guests can try all seven of the different technologies coming out of the Playful Health Technology Lab, and students will do workshops for each of the stations and help participants use the tech. At the same time, Duval and his team will get valuable feedback on what works and what can be improved, which will inform future grant proposals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duval is\u00a0particularly excited\u00a0about\u00a0a\u00a0demo\u00a0app for a\u00a0robot arm, which\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0tentatively calling\u00a0Robomoji. People who use wheelchairs can get a robot arm attached to their wheelchair to help with daily tasks. Historically, however,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a stigma\u00a0around\u00a0these robot arms.\u00a0So\u00a0Duval wanted a way to make the arms seem more friendly and give users more agency over their tech.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter\u00a0Robomoji. Users will have an\u00a0app\u00a0and they can input an emoji. The program will then tell the arm how to put that emoji into playful motion.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a complex technical feat\u2014\u201chow do you turn a single character into a 3D motion?\u201d\u2014but the result will be a way for people to express themselves creatively and reduce the robotic stigma around the arm. For instance, you can put in\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0(that\u2019s\u00a0a head-exploding emoji)\u00a0and the arm will move to\u00a0indicate\u00a0the person\u2019s head exploding. (The writer\u00a0went\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0when Duval explained it.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole idea behind this is that people need to have a\u00a0simple\u00a0way to exert agency over the\u00a0arms\u00a0so the arms are an extension of themselves,\u201d Duval said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0hard to control arms with seven degrees of freedom.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0more than the human arm has! It moves in ways that people\u2019s arms\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0move. How do you communicate with something that complex in a fast and intuitive way?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How Duval got here<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

There are lots of practical reasons for making healthcare in the United States more affordable and more accessible. But Duval\u2019s foundation for this work is\u00a0personal. When he was growing up, his mother worked at a day program for people with disabilities, and his father was a shared living provider for a man named Timmy, who lived in their home and needed full-time care. As a teenager and young adult, Duval was a respite care provider for Timmy, whom\u00a0he\u00a0sees as\u00a0a brother.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he went to college for computer science, he knew he wanted to work in this space. His\u00a0dissertation included working\u00a0with\u00a0the\u00a0Swedish organization\u00a0Cirkus,\u00a0which\u00a0uses\u00a0games to help children with sensory based motor disorder\u00a0develop better flexibility, strength,\u00a0endurance\u00a0and movement coordination. The students moved like animals, while Duval used accelerometer data to train machine learning models to recognize the movements.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs academics, we have been operating under the western medicine model of health, which is important research,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what we were missing\u00a0was\u00a0the translational integrative research that looks beyond just the clinical outcomes and thinks about health more holistically.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0what my lab does\u2014we think about the whole-person experience, not just the condition you have.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/p>\n

Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new grant from the Flinn Foundation\u00a0is allowing computer scientist Jared Duval\u00a0to expand his work around making healthcare technology both effective and fun.\u00a0 Duval, an assistant professor\u00a0in\u00a0the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, won the two-year, $300,000 grant to support his work in health-related research that\u00a0benefits\u00a0Arizona. His far-reaching work, which includes everything from helping…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":77786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}