Evaluating a new pattern development process for interface design: application to mental health services

Increased incidence of mental illness in Australia's indigenous youth is a major concern. Despite significant investment in programs to improve the situation, the absence of reliable and valid tools to assess the quality of mental health services is hindering progress. This project creates patterns that can be used to build better evaluation tools. This study develops and tests a new pattern language development process for the design of culturally sensitive user interfaces. Drawing on the pattern approach within the human-computer interface literature, we propose a distinctive set of procedures that aim to: (1) improve the validity of patterns; (2) improve the organisation of pattern languages; and (3) integrate stakeholder values into the interface design process. As a proof of concept, we will test our approach in the mental health services setting using data from a sample of indigenous youth in the Northern Territory of Australia.