MemoryLane: A Mobile Companion for Elderly Users

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MemoryLane A Mobile Companion for Elderly Users
Sheila Mc Carthy Supervisors Dr. Heather
Sayers, Prof. Paul Mc Kevitt Prof. Mike McTear
Confirmation Viva Monday 9th July 2007
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Outline

• Research Aims Motivation
• Background Areas Related Work
• Research Proposal
• Research Contributions
• Preliminary Work Next Phase
• Thesis Outline Project Schedule
• Publications

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Research Aims

• Increased usability of PDAs for elderly
• Enhanced reminiscence capabilities of elderly
• Intelligent composition of life-cached data for
  multimodal output

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Motivation

• Elderly population increasing
• Many general HCI issues with computers
• Mobile technologies offer potential to be
  harnessed as tools to augment lives of elderly
• Usability problems exist and potential very often
  not maximised
• Reminiscence proven to enhance health and social
  well-being of elderly
• Ailing memory can be problematic

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Background Areas

• HCI Usability Studies
• Life-Caching Reminiscence
• Gerontechnology
• Ethnography
• Digital Companions
• Pervasive Computing
• Storytelling Applications

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Related Work

• HCI Usability
• Zajicek (2006) Goodman et al. (2004) HCI of
  computing devices for elderly
• Siek et al. (2005) PDA usability study with
  elderly
• Newell Gregor (2000) User Sensitive Inclusive
  Design (USID)
• Reminiscence
• Quigley West (2004) digital scrapbook
• Wyche et al. (2006) memory scrapbook
• Life-Caching
• Gemmell et al. (2006) MyLifeBits experiment
• Hodges et al. (2006) - SenseCam

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Research Proposal

• Develop usable, mobile, intelligent, multimodal
  companion for elderly users
• Companion to house MemoryLane application which
  recounts users past life events and memories
• MemoryLane application developed as vehicle to
  test research aims
• Methodologies
• User Sensitive Inclusive Design Mutual
  Inspiration
• Requirements Gathering
• Investigate usability of PDA with elderly
• Investigate reminiscence patterns of elderly
• System Design
• Implementation
• Testing Evaluation

Sheila Mc Carthy
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MemoryLane Application

• Assorted media objects as input
• Multimodal output of images, video, audio and
  text to speech synthesis
• Assist elderly recall own past life events and
  memories

Sheila Mc Carthy
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System Design

• Intelligent composition of memories
• Draw on storytelling techniques
• Intelligent touch screen interface
• Deployment platform Dell Axim X51v
• Hierarchical structure categories and fields

Sheila Mc Carthy
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MemoryLane Architecture
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Example Interaction
System Good morning Bob, I hope you are well
today. Would you like to begin where you left off
last time, or see something else? (Bob is
presented with on screen button options and
chooses to see something else) System Ok Bob,
please choose a memory category (Bob is
presented with various category options on
screen and chooses childhood) System
Childhood, thanks Bob. Would you prefer to see
photos or videos clips? (Bob selects to see
photos) System Photos, thanks Bob, would you
like music with that? (Bob selects
yes) System would you like a selection, or your
favourite childhood song? (Bob chooses a
selection of music)


Sheila Mc Carthy


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Software analysis

• Visual Studio Developer Suite C or C
• .NET Compact Framework
• OpenNet Smart Device Framework
• XHTML plus Voice (XV)
• Speech synthesis tools Festival, IPOX, CSLU
  Toolkit
• Microsoft Activesync
• ActiveSync Remote Display
• Pocket PC 2005 SDK
• Unified Modelling Language (UML)
• Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
  (SPSS)

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Research Contribution
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Preliminary Work

• Pilot Study
• Investigate usability of PDA
• Field study with 15 elderly participants
• Interviews, questionnaires observation of user
  interaction
• Conclusions indicate that PDA is neither
  instinctive nor intuitive to ageing users
• Participants unable to complete set tasks without
  significant assistance
• Suggests that interface for MemoryLane be simple,
  
• usable and intuitive

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Next Phase

• Investigate reminiscence with elderly sample
• Informal focus groups
• Elicit oral histories
• Examine episodic and
• autobiographical memories
• Employ cultural probes and Memory Scrapbook

(Wyche et al. (2006) Historical Analysis Using
the Past to Design the Future. Ubicomp 2006)
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Thesis Outline

• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Literature Review
• Chapter 3 System design
• Data gathering user requirements
• Chapter 4 Implementation
• Chapter 5 Testing Evaluation
• Chapter 6 Conclusions Future Work

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Project schedule
Sheila Mc Carthy
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Publications

• Published
• Mc Carthy, S. (2007). The Usability of Mobile
  Companions for Elderly Users. Advances in
  Pervasive Computing. Adjunct proceedings of the
  5th International Conference on Pervasive
  Computing. Austrian Computer Society. Pervasive
  2007 Doctoral Colloquium, Toronto, Canada. 13
  16 May 2007
• Mc Carthy, S., Sayers, H., Mc Kevitt, P.,
  McTear, M. (2007). MemoryLane A Mobile
  Companion for Ageing Users. Proceedings of PGNet
  2007 Conference, John Moores University,
  Liverpool, England. 28-29 June 2007
• Mc Carthy, S., Sayers, H. Mc Kevitt, P.,
  (2007). Investigating the Usability of PDAs with
  Ageing Users. To appear in the Proceedings of HCI
  2007 conference. Lancaster, England. 3-7
  September 2007
• Submitted
• Mc Carthy, S., Mc Kevitt, P., McTear, M.
  Sayers, H. (2007). MemoryLane An Intelligent
  Mobile Storytelling Companion for Ageing Users.
  Conference Proceedings of AICS 2007, DIT, Dublin.
  DIT, Dublin. 29-31August 2007
• Bonto-Kane, M.V.A., Chin, A., Mc Carthy, S.,
  Srikulwong, M. Timmins, P.J. (2007) Pervasive
  2007 Conference Report. IEEE Pervasive Computing
  Journal, Issue No. 3, July-Sept 2007

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Target Publications

• Journals
• IEEE Journal on Pervasive Computing - February
  2008
• ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
  (ToCHI) - February 2009
• Conferences
• Mobile HCI 2008. The 10th International
  Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with
  mobile Devices and Services. Amsterdam, the
  Netherlands, September 2-5, 2008
• CHI 2009. The 27th International Conference on
  Computer Human Interaction. April 2009

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Conclusion

• Research Contributions
• Increased usability of PDAs for elderly
• Enhanced reminiscence capabilities of elderly
• Intelligent composition of life-cached data for
  multimodal output
• Development of MemoryLane application
• as vehicle to demonstrate research aims
• Preliminary work
• Investigation of PDA usability by elderly
• Outline of Future Work

Sheila Mc Carthy
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Thank you for your attentionAny questions?
Sheila Mc Carthy