Employment and Arthritis: Making It Work

‘Arthritis and Employment: Making it Work’ is an online self-management tool that provides valuable guidelines for workers with inflammatory arthritis enrolled in the Making It Work program. MIW provides an e-learning environment that includes fun interactive elements that will allow the user to self-reflect and empower themselves, as opposed to the heavy text version, to plan positive actions in order to make meaningful changes in their lives.

For my first industry project I have worked with Dr. Diane Lacaille and Pam Rogers, from the Arthritis Research Centre of British Columbia, to develop a digital self-management system that provides valuable information for dealing with Arthritis in the workplace.

‘Arthritis and Employment: Making it Work’ is an online self-management tool that provides valuable guidelines for workers with inflammatory arthritis enrolled in the Making It Work program. The users will find important information that will help manage their health, environment and relationships to suit both their working needs and personal life. MIW provides an e-learning environment that includes fun interactive elements that will allow the user to self-reflect and empower themselves by absorbing dynamic content, as opposed to the heavy text version, to plan positive actions in order to make meaningful changes in their lives.

The digital version of this program offers an effective design which enables users to absorb information through interactive experiences. The users will be provided with a dynamic approach while exploring content that can be easily accessible through the internet.

My Role

Technical Manager / Web Developer

What I Learned

Since the system is intended to be a test, Team CANTA is developing a product that features one module of the course and an additional interactive element. Once the system is tested and is valuable for the user group, then the project will continue production in the next semester using our documented approach and style.

I have learned about the need of a web product that delivers serious medical information in a more dynamic fashion as opposed to heavy text that can lose the attention of a consumer.

The process of designing and scoping appropriately has been an important lesson for me as the whole project would have taken longer than the four months that we have available in second semester.

Not only would it have taken longer to build the system alone from scratch, it also wouldn’t have had any value to our clients if we had not transferred the content that they provided us. Therefore it was a more lucrative choice to use an existing system that has proven to work well and build a product that will help solve the problem.

We are integrating an e-Learning system (Articulate) to present the content in a more interactive way. It helps us deliver excessive content that will be easier to absorb using presentations with narration, interactive activities and an avatar.

The Team

Alice Tai, Taylor Kachmarski, Carmen Chow, Nickolas Marouhos and Al Sinoy