Design and the Digital Divide
Insights from 40 Years in Computer Support for Older and Disabled People
Synthesis Lectures on Assistive, Rehabilitative, and Health-Preserving Technologies
Editor
Ronald M. Baecker, University of Toronto
Advances in medicine allow us to live longer, despite the assaults on our bodies from war, environmental damage, and natural disasters. The result is that many of us survive for years or decades with increasing difficulties in tasks such as seeing, hearing, moving, planning, remembering, and communicating.
This series provides current state-of-the-art overviews of key topics in the burgeoning field of assistive technologies. We take a broad view of this field, giving attention not only to prosthetics that compensate for impaired capabilities, but to methods for rehabilitating or restoring function, as well as protective interventions that enable individuals to be healthy for longer periods of time throughout the lifespan. Our emphasis is in the role of information and communications technologies in prosthetics, rehabilitation, and disease prevention.
Design and the Digital Divide: Insights from 40 Years in Computer Support for Older and Disabled People
Alan F. Newell
2011
Copyright © 2011 by Morgan & Claypool
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Design and the Digital Divide: Insights from 40 Years in Computer Support for Older and Disabled People
Alan F. Newell
ISBN: 9781608457403 paperback
ISBN: 9781608457410 ebook
DOI 10.2200/S00369ED1V01Y201106ARH001
A Publication in the Morgan & Claypool Publishers series
SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON ASSISTIVE, REHABILITATIVE, AND HEALTH-PRESERVING TECHNOLOGIES
Lecture #1
Series Editor: Ronald M. Baecker, University of Toronto Series ISSN Synthesis Lectures on Assistive, Rehabilitative, and Health-Preserving Technologies ISSN pending.
Design and the Digital Divide
Insights from 40 Years in Computer Support for Older and Disabled People
Alan F. Newell
Dundee University
SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON ASSISTIVE, REHABILITATIVE, AND HEALTH-PRESERVING TECHNOLOGIES #1
ABSTRACT
Demographic trends and increasing support costs means that good design for older and disabled people is an economic necessity, as well as a moral imperative.
Alan Newell has been described as “a visionary who stretches the imagination of all of us” and “truly ahead of his time”. This monograph describes research ranging from developing communication systems for non-speaking and hearing-impaired people to technology to support older people, and addresses the particular challenges older people have with much modern technology.
Alan recounts the insights gained from this research journey, and recommends a philosophy, and design practices, to reduce the “Digital Divide” between users of information technology and those who are excluded by the poor design of many current systems.
How to create and lead interdisciplinary teams, and the practical and ethical challenges of working in clinically related fields are discussed. The concepts of “Ordinary and Extra-ordinary HCI”, “User Sensitive Inclusive Design”, and “Design for Dynamic Diversity”, and the use of “Creative Design” techniques are suggested as extensions of “User Centered” and “Universal Design”. Also described are the use of professional theatre and other methods for raising designers’ awareness of the challenges faced by older and disabled people, ways of engaging with these groups, and of ascertaining what they “want” rather than just what they “need”.
This monograph will give all Human Computer Interaction (HCI) practitioners and designers of both mainstream and specialized IT equipment much food for thought.
KEYWORDS
digital inclusion, Human Computer Interaction, HCI design, older and disabled people, augmentative and alternative communication, user sensitive inclusive design, ordinary and extra-ordinary HCI, research methodology, requirements gathering, awareness raising, historical
To Maggie
Contents
1 40 years–Highlights and a Brief Review
1.1 An interdisciplinary education
1.2 Industry—speech recognition research
1.3 Southampton University—a developing focus on “aids for disabled people”
1.4 A chance meeting with a member of the British Parliament
1.8 IT support for older people—The Queen Mother Research Centre
1.9 Theatre for awareness raising and requirements gathering
1.10 Putting one’s faith in stories
2 Communication Systems for Non-Speaking and Hearing-Impaired People
2.1 A voice-operated typewriter for physically disabled people
2.2 The talking brooch—a communication aid for non-speaking people