Hospital user research using new media arts

This paper presents a comparative analysis of group interaction around two display types, shared and individual, using a ‘new media’ arts application as a way to explore the physical technology setup for an intensive care unit in a hospital. We propose this method for laboratory settings when the research questions derive from socially complex environments, but realworld interventions are not possible. While users solve an ‘interaction problem’ that is posed through the ‘new media’ arts application for their own expressive purposes, researchers can analyse and collate the results to understand the solution space. We present a study with the bodyPaint application to address a design issue that we discovered when assessing the merits of an electronic patient record system.