ECA student designs chair to treat SAD As soon as Chuang, Meng Jung, 26, arrived in Scotland to study a postgraduate Masters in Product Design at Edinburgh College of Art, she noticed how different the weather and natural light is to that of her native Taiwan. Following research into the British weather and its effects on the population, Meng Jung discovering that up to half a million people in the UK are thought to experience SAD With further research it became evident that women are twice as likely as men to experience SAD and in addition as many as one out of five women has symptoms of depression during pregnancy. Through her research she developed and built a prototype Revive chair to treat the sufferers of the Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD) which will go on display on Saturday 21 August, at the College as part of the week long Postgraduate Degree Show. “My research shows that light therapy is very effective in SAD sufferers and I notice that a lot of Scottish people use sun-beds for the feel good factor as well as the tan. The Revive Chair offers the feel good factor without the damaging effects of UV light as well as acting as a treatment for diagnosed SAD. The chair is touch sensitive, the lights come on for the recommended daily dose of 30minutes, turning back to white light after this time, so the user knows they’ve had their ‘dose’. The lights are detachable and the chair has other uses such as in a library, living room or bedroom to nurse a baby.” Meng Jung looked at existing light therapy products which are effective treatment in up to 85% of diagnosed cases, according to the Seasonal Affected Disorder Association. She discovered that funding is unavailable on the NHS and that traditionally treatment consists of a SAD patient buying an expensive light box and sit in front of it daily for an allocated time. “I wanted to produce a light therapy product that is a treatment for and prevention of SAD. Something that could be used in a communal space such as a doctor’s surgery or outpatient’s clinic, rented by the house, as well as for use in the home. A chair that looked good and is versatile enough to be kept as a piece of useful furniture following cure or during the summer months, when a woman was pregnant she could use it as a preventative measure and use it whilst nursing and beyond. The Revive Chair, takes into consideration: the best posture position; thickness of cushion for comfort; and firmness and shape of the chair, all to account for posture support for the spine, especially but not exclusively during pregnancy.” The person sits cocooned in the very comfortable chair and is surrounded by muted green/blue lights. White light emits 300-400lux and blue/green light emits 6,000-10,000lux, so is much more effective at providing the body with light in a short period of time, with no negative effects. Taking inspiration from the shape of babies cocooned in the womb, Meng Jung has created a chair with an ergonomic shape able to be used by pregnant women and other sufferers of SAD. It is also designed to prevent depression of this sort in people susceptible to depression.

I start the accounting master's degree classes January 3, so expect a post after nearly every course because I think that many of you might like to learn some of the same things that I will be learning. I only have one class the first term, and it is about building databases for an accounting system. I am guessing that quite a few of you document client-server systems with databases on the backend, so a lot of what I learn will apply to you, too, even though your app may not be accounting related. In other news, I highly recommend the movie, The Lives of Others. If you need to get your mind off your current project, that movie will do the trick. The interaction design book continues to be good. I plan to do a book review for Tech Comm journal but also post key lessons learned here. Yesterday I was reading chapter 6 about the interaction experiences from the 1980s, 1990s, and now to the present. The best part was about the research around multimedia and when text is best versus video.