A case study using a methodological approach to developing user interfaces for elderly and disabled people

In this paper, we present a case study on the development of interfaces for elderly and disabled users. The domain of the case study was situated in the home environment, where we focused on producing affordable technologies to enable users to interact with and to control home appliances. We have developed ambient user interfaces that are integrated in familiar home artefacts, such as televisions and digital picture frames. These interfaces are connected remotely to a home network and are adaptive to users’ expected increasing physical and cognitive needs. To support the development of the project, we created a novel methodology that is grounded in the ethical issues associated with a project of this nature. Our success with it has led to us presenting it here as a practical approach to developing user interfaces for a range of interactive applications, especially where there may be diverse user populations. This paper describes our journey through this project, how the methodology has been used throughout and the development of our user interfaces and their evaluation