Mobility for All

1
Mobility for All

• Can one size fit all?

2
Universal Access and the Universe of One

• There is no such thing as the average person.
• Don Norman, The Design of everyday Things
• Designers are often required to develop a single
  solution for everyonebut this is impossible
• A little perspective
• US Pop. 281 million
• People w/ severe disability 12 or 33 million
• Even if you could design for the 99th percentile,
  1 or 2.8 million will be left out!
• Universal access ? One size fits all

3
Designing with atoms vs. bits

• The world of atoms is less malleable that the
  world of bits
• Consider bus maps and schedules

• Reality of Printed Maps
• Represent plans
• Person must adapt to a one-size-fits-all
  representation
• Personalized maps are expensivenot scalablenot
  feasible?
• Cheap short-term costmass production

4
Designing with atoms vs. bits

• The world of atoms is less malleable that the
  world of bits
• Consider bus maps and schedules

• Reality of Printed Maps
• Represent plans
• Person must adapt to a one-size-fits-all
  representation
• Personalized maps are expensivenot scalablenot
  feasible?
• Cheap short-term costmass production

• Potential of Digital Maps
• Represent reality
• Representation can dynamically adapt to the task
  and person
• Scalability is relatively cheapdistribution is
  simple
• Cheaper in the long-term?

5
User Modelsunderstanding the user

• Different usage patterns between familiar and
  unfamiliar users

Familiar Unfamiliar
Behavior Have learned (habituated) over timethey act Rely heavily on procedural knowledgeplanwaitact
Possible Errors Capture errorsintended sequence is overridden by a familiar, unintended sequence Errors in thoughterror in the planning procedure
Possible Fix EvaluationPlan vs. Actions Timely feedback Eliminate need for planning Guided planning

• Claim Usage patterns and needs are
  disability-dependant
• Some people need constant reminders of the goal
• Some people need to focus on the task steps and
  may be overloaded by excessive reminders

6
Using User and Task Models

• Know the user
• work with specialists to develop a taxonomy of
  cognitive (dis)ability.
• Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• develop an architecture to map representations
  onto a taxonomy of cognitive (dis)abilities
• Know the users goals
• context aware systems that will know what task
  they are trying to accomplish
• what can be inferred from the environment?

7
Adaptable and Adaptive Systems

• Systems need to be adaptive so they can keep pace
  as users improve and degrade in task performance.
• routine tasks can become habituatedare some
  types of users more/less likely to habituate?
• habituated tasks can be forgotten if not active
  or as disability degenerateswhat types of
  disabilities are more/less likely to be affected?
• Systems need to be adaptable so that caretakers
  can tailor the interaction experience for those
  in their care.

8
Envision model

• Caretaker primes the system with formal and
  informal information about their charge
• Based on caretakers description, the user in
  mapped onto disability taxonomy and system acts
  based on that mapping
• Caretaker then acts as a moderator
• continuously monitors the human-computer
  collaboration
• provides feedback to both human and computer.
• Caretakers feedback updates the user
  description, the person is remapped within the
  taxonomy, and the cycle continues

9
Envision model

• Caretaker primes the system with formal and
  informal information about their charge
• Based on caretakers description, the user in
  mapped onto disability taxonomy and system acts
  based on that mapping
• Caretaker then acts as a moderator
• continuously monitors the human-computer
  collaboration
• provides feedback to both human and computer.
• Caretakers feedback updates the user
  description, the person is remapped within the
  taxonomy, and the cycle continues

10
Examples

• Context Awareness
• Knows where the user is locatedGPS Coordinates
  -gt Zip Code
• Knows local weather
• Knows that arriving bus looks similar to target
  bus -gt avoid description errors
• Knows that is Sundayno work
• User Model
• Knows the users schedule
• Knows what activities are available
• At a given time
• With given weather conditions
• Knows that the users should not cross streets and
  generates appropriate route plan
• Knows that the user tends to fall a sleep on
  busesreminds bus driver to prompt user if
  necessary
• Knows current activity is novel, but very similar
  to another highly familiar activityget milk on
  the way home from work -gt avoid capture errors

11
System Architecture(First Draft)
Caretaker Describes Monitors Feeds back
Activity dB
User Model
Activity Planner
Activity Monitor
User Selects/Performs Activities
Context Analyzer
Zip codeData
Weather Data
GPSData