academic to the head of an Applied Computing Department was not entirely for academic reasons, but proved to be exactly the right move to make both from teaching and research standpoints.
1.7 THE SCHOOL OF COMPUTING
A major thrust of the School of Computing at Dundee University is computer systems for areas of high social impact. It had four research groups: Assistive and Healthcare technologies, Interactive Systems design, Computational systems and the Space Technology group. There was cross-fertilization between all four groups, but, in particular, there was close links between Assistive and Health care technologies and Interactive system design. The Assistive and Healthcare technologies group contains over 30 researchers developing computer and communication technology for older and disabled people, and has become the largest and one of the most influential academic groups in the world in this field [Newell, A., 2004].
In the 1980s and 1990s, much of the group’s research to support disabled people focussed on non-speaking people and the development of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems [Gregor et al., 1999]. These are computer systems that control a speech synthesiser—the most well-known user of such a system being Professor Steven Hawking of Cambridge University. My academic colleagues Adrian Pickering, John Arnott, Norman Alm, Annalu Waller and Ian Ricketts, plus a large number of Research Students, Assistants and Fellows worked in this field. This work which will be described in more detail in later chapters, but was aimed at increasing the rate at which non-speaking people could talk, and was based on prediction, and the use of conversational models. It is vital that such work be interdisciplinary, and our research group has included a wide variety of disciplines, including psychologists, speech and occupational therapists, linguists, philosophers, nurses, school teachers, and creative designers, as well as computer engineers and human computer interface (HCI) specialists. I, and other colleagues, also have interdisciplinary academic backgrounds, which have proved particular helpful in our research. We were concerned with providing systems that allowed the non-speaking people to transmit their personalities, rather than simply deliver messages, and the work included Iain Murray’s pioneering work on inserting emotion into the output of speech synthesisers.
Our work in the AAC field led us to be considered mavericks by many speech therapists in the international field, some of whom were strongly opposed to our ideas, but Arlene Kraat was a constant source of support for our work.
A maverick: “a person pursuing rebellious, even potentially disruptive, policies or ideas”.
Thanks to Lynda Booth, a special education teacher, we were the first research group to show that predictive systems can assist people with spelling and language dysfunction, and John Arnott’s research into disambiguation was one of the triggers for the development of the T9 system which is available in most mobile phones today. Other work the group did during this period included Peter Gregor’s research into computer-supported interviewing, where we worked with child psychiatry units and collaborated with researchers in a secure mental hospital. Peter Gregor also conducted ground-breaking research into support for people with dyslexia.
Unusual perspectives can be valuable.
In addition to research focussed on the needs of disabled people, we examined the wider ramifications of such work, and developed the idea of “ordinary” and “extra-ordinary” human computer interaction. The concept was that “ordinary” people operating in an “extra-ordinary” environment (high workload and stress, such as flying planes and warfare), provided similar HCI challenges to those of “extra-ordinary” (disabled) people operating in an “ordinary” environment (e.g., word processing). This led to a number of projects, and was also used to encourage researchers in the international HCI community to consider the needs of disabled people in their research. Messages from other researchers to the HCI and Design communities were focussed on the concepts of “Inclusive Design”, “Design for All”, and “Universal Design”. In the UK at least, however, these concepts only began to be seen in mainstream Information Technology research and development in the early years of this century. The growing importance of the digital economy and the demographics of the user base gave these ideas a commercial impetus. Policy makers are realising that older and disabled people, and other minority groups, are much less represented in cyber space than young, able-bodied, educated people. This is important for the UK Government as many of the services they offer and hope to computerise are targeted at these groups.
1.8 IT SUPPORT FOR OLDER PEOPLE—THE QUEEN MOTHER RESEARCH CENTRE
In the latter part of the 20th Century, most of the research work in this field, including that at Dundee, had been focussed on disabled people. By the turn of the century, however, the wider public were beginning to become aware of the changing demographics: the world was becoming older, people were living longer, and, in the developed world, birth-rates were reducing. This led to serious concerns about how the world could support such a changing demographic, and there was a growing interest in how technology could help support older people. We realised that the characteristics of older people, some of whom had disabilities, were very different to those of the traditional disabled person for whom most computer-based technology had been developed. We thus decided to investigate how technology could support older people, and developed the concept of a research centre focussed on information technology to support older people.
“I don’t skate to where the puck is. I skate to where the puck is going to be”. Wayne Gretzky (Canadian hockey player)
Through the good offices of Dr. Mary, Dowager Countess of Strathmore, we were able to persuade Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, to give her name to this venture (see Figure 1.1), and the University to provide a purpose-designed building for the School of Computing that contained both a studio theatre and a User Centre—a facility specifically for our older users. In 2006, the Princess Royal formally opened the Queen Mother Building which housed the School (see Figure 1.2), including the research specifically aimed at supporting older and disabled users [Newell, A., 2006]. The research in the School can be seen at:
During this period, Peter Gregor developed links with the School of Design, and introduced an “Interactive Media Design Degree” (now called Digital Interaction Design). This led to the recruitment of Graham Pullin from the design house IDEO, who had a background in rehabilitation engineering and creative design. He has been developing the use of creative design techniques within disability and AAC research, and this has produced novel and very interesting research directions. Peter Gregor also initiated the School’s Digital Media Access Group. This combines research activities with an audit and advisory service for accessibility and usability of websites and software interfaces, usability research with older and disabled people, and advice on accessibility strategies. This combination of research and service is not usual within an academic environment, but in our case has proved extremely successful, with much synergy existing between the two remits.
Norman Alm re-aligned his research from communication aids for speech-impaired people into a focus on how information technology could be used to support people with dementia. This led to the development of a multi-media-based system to encourage reminiscence and other systems to improve the quality of life of people with dementia. John Arnott and Nick Hine expanded their research into Smart Housing, and Steve McKenna’s research on computer vision included similar application areas.
Figure 1.1: Letter from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Figure 1.2: The Queen Mother Building.