Designing Technology For People with Disabilities. Maria ..

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• Designing Technology For People with Disabilities
• Maria Klawe
• Harvey Mudd College

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Outline

• The opportunity
• Two examples
• The Aphasia Project
• Swing Swing Revolution

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The opportunity

• Inexpensive multi-modal technologies
• New input devices
• Wii, Guitar Hero, Dance mat
• Health care slow to use information technology
• Aging population
• Cognitive and physical deficits

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What is Aphasia?
Aphasia is a loss of words not intelligence
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• Acquired language disorder
• Caused by brain damage (e.g. stroke, trauma, etc.)

• Impairment of communication abilities
• Relative sparing of other cognitive abilities

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Impact of Aphasia

• More common than Parkinsons disease
• Withdrawal from society

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Problems with existing solutions

• Limited to communication lack of higher level
  applications
• Communication too slow for most aphasics
• Stigma of relying on laptops in public
• Poor user-interface of handhelds
• Buttons too small
• Confusing navigation
• Poor organization of multi-media data

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The Aphasia Project

• Goal understand how individuals with aphasia
  communicate and seek opportunities where
  technology can better support individuals in
  their daily life
• Interdisciplinary project computer science,
  psychology, speech language pathology
• Multi-site UBC, Princeton, aphasia centers

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Types of Subprojects

• I Participatory design of application prototypes
• Daily planner
• Handheld
• Combined handheld and laptop system
• Recipe book (laptop or tablet)
• File system (handheld)
• II Evaluation of commercial PDAs
• Long term use by Skip
• Short term use of camera function
• Basic research
• Impact of aging on use of mobile devices
• Effectiveness of images and videos versus icons
  in visual language

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Special challenges with research involving
aphasics

• Access to participants
• Communication with participants
• Every individual is different
• Right hemiparesis
• Lack of experience with computers, PDA

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Participatory Design of a High-Level Application
Prototype

• daily planner

• Anita Borg,
• 1949 - 2003

Karyn Moffatt
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ESI Planner 1
The Enhanced with Sound and Images Planner

• PDA application (iPaq from HP)
• A computerized daily planner designed for people
  with aphasia
• Uses images, sound, and text to represent people
  and places in appointments

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I Images, Sound, Text

• Say you have an appointment with Queen Elizabeth,
  at the Eiffel Tower on November 6, 2003 from
  800am to 1000am
• ESI Planner would display it like this

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I Participatory Design

• Five phases

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I Participatory Design

• Five phases
• Idea brainstorming
• Interviews
• Identified needs
• Daily planner
• Recipe book

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I Participatory Design

• Five phases
• Idea brainstorming
• Paper low-fi prototypes

2 - Using computer tools
1 - Drawn by hand
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I Participatory Design

• Five phases
• Idea brainstorming
• Paper low-fi prototypes
• Medium-fi prototypes

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I Participatory Design

• Five phases
• Idea brainstorming
• Paper low-fi prototypes
• Medium-fi prototypes
• High-fi prototypes and formal evaluation in lab
• Field study lasting several weeks

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I High-fi Prototypes
ESI Planner
NESI Planner
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I Formal Evaluation

• 8 participants
• Session 1
• 30 minutes with each Planner (ESI and NESI)
• 10 tasks (retrieval, creation, modification)
• of tasks completed
• of tasks completed correctly
• Session 2 Western Aphasia Battery

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I Results
Significantly more tasks completed correctly with
ESI Planner.

• Preference 5 ESI, 3 NESI.

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Limitations of ESI Planner 1

• Need for field study
• Interface for input and modification of
  appointments (small buttons, too cluttered)
• Lack of stable memory on iPAQ after power loss
• Lack of library of icons and sounds
• Difficulties of participatory design with
  aphasics

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ESI Planner 2

• Input on laptop
• Lingraphica library of icons and sounds
• Stable memory
• Built-in camera in iPAQ
• Participatory design with speech language
  pathologists (SLPs)
• Four week field study

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The Field Study

• Seven aphasics at Adler Aphasia Center
• Four weeks, one videotaped meeting with each
  participant per week
• Log of interactions with iPAQ and computer

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Outcomes

• Limited use of appointments
• Input only possible at Adler Center
• Desire for input on iPAQ
• Extensive use of camera
• Desire for better photo management on iPAQ
• Problems with sound playback
• Range of text and speech abilities
• Enthusiasm for continued use of iPAQs

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Current projects

• Understanding visual languages, e.g. video vs
  still images
• Hierarchical vs semantic nets for word access
• Effects of aging on device interactions

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Broader impact

• Dual usefulness between aphasics and elderly
  (poor vision, memory loss, Alzheimers, etc.)
• Other visual language applications

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For More Info

• http//www.cs.ubc.ca/projects/Aphasia/

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Swing Swing Revolution

• Goal increase balance, mobility and fitness in
  older people
• Approach modify Dance Dance Revolution

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DDR mat
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DDR game
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DDR game
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DDR game
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DDR game
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DDR game
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DDR game
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DDR game
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modifications

• Finer grained dance mat
• Can select subset of mat (e.g. one side)
• Gradual increase in difficulty
• Use with walker or balance rails
• Age appropriate music

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Questions and comments