In Search of a Decision-Making Framework for Involving Users Who Have Learning Disabilities or Sensory Impairments in the Process of Designing Future Technologies

A comprehensive literature review was undertaken in order to identify design approaches that have been employed with users who have learning disabilities or sensory impairment; the factors that influenced their choices and the extent to which the approaches and techniques adopted were successful. There was a huge variation across the corpus regarding whether a justification was offered for the choice of approach and the extent to which those justifications were supported by evidence. In addition there was a lack of comprehensive evaluation of the design approaches. Technology designers who intend working with users with learning disabilities or sensory impairments therefore currently have little to help them decide which design approach might be the most appropriate or effective.</p

Designing with and for people with intellectual disabilities

People with intellectual disabilities often experience inequalities that affect the standard of their everyday lives. Assistive technologies can help alleviate some of these inequalities, yet abandonment rates remain high. This is in part due to a lack of involvement of all stakeholders in their design and evaluation, thus resulting in outputs that do not meet this cohort’s complex and heterogeneous needs. The aim of this half-day workshop is to focus on community building in a field that is relatively thin and disjointed, thereby enabling researchers to share experiences on how to design for and with people with intellectual disabilities, provide internal support, and establish new collaborations. Workshop outcomes will help to fill a gap in the available guidelines on how to include people with intellectual disabilities in research, through more accessible protocols as well as personalised and better fit-for-purpose technologies

Evaluating the usability of a tablet application to support adults with mild intellectual disabilities during primary care consultations

Patients with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) face significant communication barriers when attending primary care consultations. Yet there is a lack of two-way communication aids available to support them in conveying medical symptoms to General Practitioners (GPs). Based on a multi-stakeholder co-design process including GPs, domain experts, people with mild ID and carers, our previous work developed prototype technology to support people with mild ID in GP consultations. This paper discusses the findings of a usability study performed on the resulting prototype. Five experts in ID/usability, four caregivers, and five GPs participated in cognitive and post-task walkthroughs. They found that the application has the potential to increase communication, reduce time constraints, and overcome diagnostic overshadowing. Nevertheless, the participants also identified accessibility barriers relating to: medical imagery; the abstract nature of certain conditions; the use of adaptive questionnaires; and the overloading of information. Potential solutions to overcome these barriers were also discussed

Lessons from Expert Focus Groups on how to Better Support Adults with Mild Intellectual Disabilities to Engage in Co-Design

Co-design techniques generally rely upon higher-order cognitive skills, such as abstraction and creativity, meaning they may be inaccessible to people with intellectual disabilities (ID). Consequently, investigators must adjust the methods employed throughout their studies to ensure the complex needs of people with ID are appropriately catered to. Yet, there are a lack of guidelines to support researchers in this process, with previous literature often neglecting to discuss the decisions made during the development of their study protocols. We propose a new procedure to overcome this lack of support, by utilizing the knowledge of “experts” in ID to design a more accessible workshop for the target population. 12 experts across two focus groups were successful in identifying accessibility barriers throughout a set of typical early co-design activities. Recommendations to overcome these barriers are discussed along with lessons on how to better support people with ID to engage in co-design

Nutzerzentrierte Gestaltung für Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung

Ein grosser Bevölkerungsanteil lebt mit einer kognitiven Beeinträchtigung. Die betroffenen Personen begegnen aufgrund ihrer funktionalen Einschränkungen bei der Nutzung von Informationstechnologien Herausforderungen, die sie gegebenenfalls an der gesellschaftlichen Partizipation hindern. Eine Berücksichtigung dieser Nutzergruppe bei der Technologiegestaltung und -entwicklung ist deshalb zwingend notwendig, findet jedoch in der Praxis kaum statt. Etablierte Methoden der nutzerzentrierten Gestaltung zielen auf Menschen mit durchschnittlichen Eigenschaften ab. Einige Studien und Projekte wurden bereits durchgeführt, jedoch fehlt es an einem strukturierten Überblick sowie an Ansätzen, wie die nutzerzentrierte Gestaltung für Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung eingesetzt und adaptiert werden kann. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse der Projekte und Studien des Fachbereichs sind ernüchternd. Zwar ziehen einige Studien Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung explizit in den Designprozess mit ein, doch wird kaum über das Vorgehen oder nötige Anpassungen reflektiert. Durch die Vielfalt der Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung können zwar einige Empfehlungen für die Einbeziehung formuliert werden, diese zu generalisieren und auf andere Projekte zu übertragen, stellt jedoch eine Herausforderung dar. Daher wird ein standardisiertes Framework für das Teilen von Erkenntnissen aus durchgeführten Projekten gefordert. Es müssen geeignete Methoden gefunden werden, wenn kognitiv beeinträchtige Menschen miteinbezogen werden sollen – insbesondere dann, wenn zusätzlich weitere Nutzergruppen mit abweichender Beeinträchtigung involviert sind. Die Problematik hängt jedoch nicht nur von der Forschung ab und so bleibt in Zukunft die Übertragung der Erkenntnisse in die Praxis eine der grössten Herausforderungen

YouTransfer, YouDesign: A participatory approach to design assistive technology for wheelchair transfers

Transferring independently to and from their wheelchair is an essential routine task for many wheelchair users but it can be physically demanding and can lead to falls and upper limb injuries that reduce the person’s independence. New assistive technologies (ATs) that facilitate the performance of wheelchair transfers have the potential to allow wheelchair users to gain further independence. To ensure that users’ needs are addressed by ATs, the active involvement of wheelchair users in the process of design and development is critical. However, participation can be burdensome for many wheelchair users as design processes where users are directly involved often require prolonged engagement. This thesis makes two contributions to facilitate wheelchair users’ engagement in the participatory design process for ATs, while being mindful of the burden of participation. The first contribution is a framework that provides a modular structure guiding the participatory design process from initial problem identification and analysis to facilitating collaborations between wheelchair users and designers. The framework identifies four factors determining the need and adoption process for ATs: (i) People focuses on the target population, (ii) Person includes personal characteristics, (iii) Activity refers to the challenges associated with the task, and (iv) Context encompasses the effect of the environment in which the activity takes place. The second contribution constitutes a rich picture of personal and external elements influencing real world wheelchair transfers that emerged from four studies carried out to investigate the effect of the framework factors on the design process for ATs. A related outcome based on these contributions is a framing document to share knowledge between wheelchair users and designers to provide focus and promote an equal collaboration among participants