Design Ignites Change - Projects - Tabula Personal Health Notebook

Pratt Institute

Tabula is a web and mobile application that helps people track their health over time with graphic symbols and data visualization. Users can create entries as often as they want, visually recording sensations, marks and health events, including written notes and time stamps, and color-coding entries by type of problem. The collection of these entries can then be viewed by day, month, year or as a continuous timeline. By engaging with the application over time, users can begin to see patterns in their health, understand their bodies better, and create useful records of health problems for personal reference or when visiting a doctor.

Rebecca Wiener
rebeccasw.com
rebeccasw@gmail.com

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October 31, 2011

Users can record physical sensations, marks and events with graphic symbols

These entries are collected into a timeline that helps users see changes over time

The entries can also be viewed as a calendar so users can associate different problems with the day, season and time during which they occurred

Tabula creates data visualizations of the entries to help users better understand patterns in their health

Demo video of the Tabula web application

Too often, we rely on doctors to tell us what's happening in our bodies. But the best health care is prevention. We need to take responsibility for knowing our own bodies and their needs, and use that information to change bad habits and become better patients. The goal is not self-diagnosis, but rather, self-knowledge.

The act of recording physical discomfort, marks and health events teaches us to pay closer attention to our bodies. And the resulting records are valuable tools for helping us visualize, externalize and validate problems that can often be hard to describe—both to ourselves and to our doctors.

Tabula Personal Health Notebook

Pratt Institute

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