Tutorial on Inclusive Design for Older and Disabled Users
Tutorial on Inclusive Design for Older and Disabled Users at i-HCI 2009
Thursday 17th September
Location: Lloyd Building Room LB01 (see map of TCD)
Time: 1.30pm - 5.30pm (afternoon session) (registration from 8.30 - 9.30)
Tutorial: Inclusive Design for Older and Disabled Users
Registration: To attend this tutorial you must register for i-HCI 2009 and pay the regular €50 or student fee €30.
Organisers:
Helen Petrie, Christopher Power and David Swallow
HCI Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of York
We live in a rapidly aging society. According to recent United Nations statistics [1], one out of every ten people in the world is now aged 60 years or older, in Europe the figure is one in every five people. While current cohorts of older people have grown up without extensive use of digital technologies, as the post-World War II generations age (the “baby boomers”, the first of whom have now started retiring), they will be much more familiar with such technologies. So there are a number of drivers to push the design of technologies for older and disabled users: older people inevitably have at least minor disabilities, often several disabilities that interact with each other; the need and desire to live independently into older age; and the desire to continue using familiar technologies.
This workshop will consider the differences characteristics of older and disabled people, their attitudes and use of technologies and methodologies for how to design technologies (from websites to mobile phones) that are attractive and usable for these groups. An added bonus is that it has been repeated shown that technologies that are designed “inclusively” for the needs of disabled and older people, are also more attractive and usable by all users.
Workshop facilitators:
Helen Petrie is Head of the HCI Group and a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York in the UK. She has been involved in many research projects on the design and evaluation of technology for disabled and elderly people, including 12 EU-funded projects. She recently led the team that conducted the largest and most comprehensive study of the accessibility of the Web for people with disabilities for the Disability Rights Commission. She was also academic lead on the UK funded VISTA Project which developed an interface to digital television for visually disabled and older people; VISTA won the Royal Television Society Award for Technical Innovation in 2003. She is on the board of a number of academic journals, is a Lay Advisor to the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and is a trustee of the Foundation for Assistive Technology (FAST).
Christopher Power is a Research Fellow at the University of York. His PhD research at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) was on a novel exploration technique of multi-modal diagrams by people with visual disabilities. This research included empirical evaluation of the performance of users working with pointing and steering activities on an interactive, refreshable pin display. His interest in web accessibility was driven from his participation in the BenToWeb project, working on developing test methodologies for web accessibility and on the definition of fundamental web accessibility measures on colour contrast discrimination by various groups of users. His current work is in participation with the EU4ALL project on accessibility of elearning for people with disabilities. He currently serves as a programme committee member for accessibility conferences (ADDW, W4A) and is an editor for the ISO Access for All standard.
David Swallow is a Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York. He received a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of York, where he specialised in the psychological aspects of Human-Computer Interaction. David’s interest in Interaction Design was further developed in his pursuit of a Master's degree in Information Processing and the Man-Machine Interface, also at the University of York, where he focused upon the user experience of mobile 'smart' phones. David is currently involved in EU4ALL - a project funded by the European Union that aims to develop an open service-orientated architecture that will support accessible lifelong learning by disabled and older adults. He has also been involved in BenToWeb - a European Union funded project with the aim of developing benchmarking tools and methodologies to determine the accessibility of websites, and TENUTA - a project funded by the European Union to provide accessibility and usability support to projects funded under the eTen Programme. Having worked as a web developer, David specialises in the creation of accessible standards-compliant websites and also serves as a programme committee member for the Accessible Design in the Digital World conference.
[1] United Nations Secretariat, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.