Household appliances control device for the elderly

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Household appliances control device for the
elderly

• On how to encourage universal usability in the
  home environment

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Introduction

• Multi-modal interface for elderly and visually
  impaired users
• Project description
• Investigation of musical earcons
• Comparison of three modalities
• Audio Vs visual Vs audiovisual
• Use of musical earcons in a household appliance
  control device aimed specially at elderly and
  visually impaired users.

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Multimodal User Interface
  Model of the proposed interface in relation
with various users groups.
 
General users group
Visually impaired
Deaf
Elderly
  Interface        
Image
Sound
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Domotics

• Domotics, the application of information and
  communication technologies for more comfort and
  convenience in and around the home (Plesea,02)
• Role of computers in everyday life (office, home,
  public spaces)

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Elderly

• Increase ageing population
• Sensory loss
• Hearing loss
• Vision loss
• Psychological and social gain

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Musical Earcons

• Earcons Non-verbal audio messages used in the
  user-computer interface to provide information to
  the user about some computer object, operation or
  interaction.
• Musical Tunes

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  Earcon composition structure
Appliance 1
on
Appliance 2
First component from the status information
(mutually exclusive) and second component from
the appliance/s component (mutually exclusive).
Appliance 3
Appliance 4
off
Appliance 5
Appliance 6
Earcon
Motive 1
Motive 2
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Interface Design

• Tools used in the design process
• Cognitive science
• Participatory design
• Iterative design

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Design Process
 
Participatory design
                               
 
Technical constrains
Human constraints
Users evaluation
Cognitive knowledge
Users preferences
Human-machine interaction principles
Final Product
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Visual interface
Icons Design process
First icons interface prototype
First set of icons presented
Second set of icons presented
Selection
Modification
The first set of 6 icons was presented to rest
home residents. From those 6 icons 3 were
selected as the preferred ones among the
interviews. The 3 selected items were presented
to staff and students at JMU age ranging from 18
to 62 and to visually impaired users aged from 21
to 58.
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Bath design process
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Audio interface
Earcons Design Process
First earcons Interface prototype
Modification
First set earcons designed
Redesign
Second set earcons developed
The first set of earcons was developed and
redesign by music expert. Second set of earcons
is analysed and modified according to earcon
design principles, and opinion given by visually
impaired users.
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Audio interface
Bath Off
Bath Off
Bath On
Bath On
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Visual interface
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Evaluation

• Speed of performance
• Errors
• Type 1Wrong identification of appliance and
  status
• Type 2Wrong appliance identification
• Type 3Wrong status identification
• Subjective evaluation

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Pre-test results

• Number of error greater than expected
• 71 incorrect identifications

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Table results
Table 1. Test 2 Descriptive statistics, time in
seconds.
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Conclusions

• Welcome idea both elderly and visually impaired
  liked the idea.
• Learning time long and hard
• Design needs improving

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Future steps

• Test using different musical instruments
• Test while users are engaged in other activities

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Why are we not advancing as expected?