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.
During this time, I was particularly focussed on how the needs of older people could be included within current design methodologies such as “user-centred design”. Our UTOPIA (Usable Technology for Older People Inclusive and Appropriate) project—in collaboration with Glasgow, Napier and Abertay Universities—investigated the most effective ways of including older people in the design process. We were also commissioned to act as consultants to Fujitsu, who were developing a portal for older people for the Department for Education. The research in this project formed the basis for the government’s “MyGuide” website for older people. The lesson from this project was that we had to look for very powerful ways of raising software and human interface designers’ awareness of characteristics of older people: not only their sensory and motor characteristics, but also the effects of their up-bringing and their relationship with new technologies.
1.9 THEATRE FOR AWARENESS RAISING AND REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
It was essential that powerful communication techniques be used for awareness raising, and we thus began a fruitful collaboration with Maggie Morgan, a script writer and theatre director (then artistic director of the Foxtrot Theatre Company and now of MM Training) who had a background in Forum Theatre and the use of Interactive Theatre in training and community consultation, and a film maker David Goodall (of Soundsmove). In collaboration with these, and other theatre professionals, we used theatre both for requirements gathering for projects to support older people and for raising designers’ awareness of the characteristics, needs and wants of older people. A particular use of theatre within a research framework was part of the Inclusive Design Educational Network of academic and industrial researchers that was aimed at producing a research agenda for this field. In parallel with developing a research agenda, this group briefed a film maker, who illustrated the research agenda developed by this project by a narrative film. “Relatively PC” and other examples of the use of theatre in this field can be seen at:
www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/acprojects/iden.
In 2006, I became an Emeritus Professor, and, in 2009, Vicki Hanson, formerly the Accessibility Manager of IBM, based in New York, joined the School as a full professor. Together with other research projects, she is a Principal Investigator for the Newcastle and Dundee Universities £ 13M Inclusive Digital Economy Hub funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The School thus continues to go from strength to strength in this field of research.
1.10 PUTTING ONE’S FAITH IN STORIES
A vital part of research is communicating results—both to fellow researchers and to the public, and I have investigated ways of trying to increase the impact of one’s results. I have come to the conclusion that, although data is vital, the power of the message in the data can be greatly increased by presenting a story, if possible
