Design Of Technologies For People Research Articles

Considerations for the use and design of technology for people living with dementia.

Considerations for the use and design of technology for people living with dementia.

The Role of Sensory Changes in Everyday Technology use by People with Mild to Moderate Dementia.

Technology design for dementia primarily focuses on cognitive needs. This includes providing task support, accommodating memory changes, and simplifying interfaces by reducing complexity. However, research has demonstrated that dementia affects not only the cognitive abilities of people with dementia, but also their sensory and motor abilities. This work provides a first step towards understanding the interaction between sensory changes and technology use by people with dementia through interviews with people with mild to moderate dementia and practitioners. Our analysis yields an understanding of strategies to use technology to overcome sensory changes associated with dementia as well as barriers to using certain technologies. We present new directions for the design of technologies for people with mild to moderate dementia, including intentional sensory stimulation to facilitate comprehension, as well as opportunities to leverage advances in technology design from other disabilities for dementia.

A proposal for a unified framework for the design of technologies for people with learning difficulties

BACKGROUND: Existing generic technology design principles and guidelines are considered not to be sensitive enough to meet the needs of people with learning difficulties. OBJECTIVE: To propose a unified design framework that can inform the design of technologies for people with learning difficulties METHODS: A literature search was undertaken and the resulting papers were analysed and coded in order to identify common ideas or recommendations that could be clustered into design principles. RESULTS: Four main categories of design principles were identified: learning support, accessibility, usability and agency. A conceptual framework incorporating diversity, difference and digital inclusion offers a way to understand the consequences of applying or not applying some or all of the principles. CONCLUSIONS: A unified framework for the design of technologies for people with learning difficulties has the potential to fill the gap that more generic design guidelines cannot fill with regards to meeting the very specific needs of people with learning difficulties.

Design for user empowerment

Approaches to to the design of technology for people with disabilities are surveyed. These include universal design, user centered design, participatory design, ability based design, and finally, design for user empowerment. A key feature of the latter is access to advanced education for disabled scientists and engineers to create the next generation of technology that will benefit them and others like them. AccessComputing, an alliance of more than thirty partners with the common goal of increasing the participation of people with disabilities in computing fields, is discussed.