April 2025

💬 Terminology That Represents You

Nobody likes labels, but sometimes, to communicate clearly and inclusively, we need to choose words carefully. We’ve often found ourselves debating the best way to refer to people with lived experience of anxiety disorders, knowing that every term carries different meanings and assumptions.

To help guide this choice, we ran a short rating survey with our participants, collecting 18 answers.

🔸 We excluded any term that received even a single “Strongly Opposed” rating. This was the case for both ‘Service users’ and  ‘PLEAD (People with Lived Experience of Anxiety Disorders)’.

🔸 ‘Clients’ was next to go, as it collected the highest number of “Opposed” ratings.

🔸 The final decision came down to ‘Patients’ and ‘the Public’. While ‘the Public’ had fewer “Opposed” votes compared to ‘Patients’, we chose ‘Patients’ to ensure clarity. The term ‘the Public’ was considered too broad, potentially including carers and others beyond those with lived experience.

Recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we hope that this process -and the rationale behind it- resonates with our commitment to inclusivity and transparency.

🛠️ Phase II: Workshops, Interviews, & Storyboards

We’re thrilled to share that workshops and Interviews of Phase II have officially wrapped up, and what a phase it was! The enthusiasm matched (if not exceeded) that of Phase I. A huge thank you to everyone who took part.

To those who expressed interest but we couldn’t accommodate: we’re truly sorry! Due to grant timelines, our roadmap through to Phase III is quite tight. However, there’s still time to contribute through our storyboard tool. If you haven’t received the materials and would like to join in, just let us know!

📅 Coming Up: Phase III already in May!

The next phase of our co-design process is almost here:

🗓️ Workshops with patients will run from May 13 to 16.

🗓️ Interviews with carers and clinicians will begin May 12 and continue into the following week.

All participants should have received invitations to select their time preferences. If you haven’t, please get in touch as we’d love to include you.

In Phase II, we explored what emotion recognition technology might help with. Now, in Phase III, we’ll turn our attention to the how:

➡️ How should the technology behave in the different scenarios we are considering?

➡️ What design and interaction choices will make it feel truly useful, respectful, and supportive?

🎬 Extra: A Movie to Reflect On – ‘Her’

Throughout our co-design conversations, we’ve touched on how AI might evolve and how we feel about interacting with it. Inspired by these discussions, I’d love to recommend the film “Her” by Spike Jonze (2013), ****a beautifully imagined story of a man’s relationship with an AI voice assistant.

While firmly a work of fiction (AI doesn’t have consciousness or sense of identity as portrayed), it raises thought-provoking questions about technology, connection, and the human experience. If you’re in the mood for something reflective and moving, this is a great pick!

🎖️ A Small, Still Welcome Recognition

We’re proud to share that our last conference paper has been recognised as a high-quality contribution and was selected for post-publication invitation.

You can read it here: Affective_Computing_in_Anxiety_Disorders_A_Rapid_Literature_Review_of_Emotion_Recognition_Applications