‘I Got To Answer the Way I Wanted To’: Intellectual Disabilities and Participation in Technology Design Activities

User involvement in technology design processes can have positive implications for the designed service, but less is known about how such participation affects people with intellectual disabilities. We explored how 13 individuals with intellectual disabilities experienced participation in the design of a transport support application. The study is based on qualitative interviews, photovoice interviews, participant observations, and Smileyometer ratings. A thematic analysis generated the following themes: a sense of pride and ownership, an experience of socialization, and a sense of empowerment. The findings suggest that participation in design activities is a primarily positive experience that develops the participants’ skills. However, experiences such as boredom may occur. The variability within the experiences of the participants show that it is crucial to be aware of individuality, preferences, and personal interests when designing with people with intellectual disabilities.publishedVersio

Motivation of people with intellectual disabilities in technology design activities: the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness

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On the other side from you: How library design facilitates and hinders group work

This paper describes a longitudinal ethnographic analysis of space usage in an academic library. We focus on group work, identifying a range of group types and activities. We address how the library space and users’ technology choices impact the flow of information within groups, and finally identify some implications for both space and technology design

Seeing the wood for the trees. Carer related research and knowledge: A scoping review

This NIHR-SSCR funded scoping review provides a comprehensive mapping of what is known about carers and caring, and aims to help inform policy, practice and research in relation to carers. The review was undertaken by searching 10 electronic bibliographic databases, supplemented by additional web searches to identify academic research, grey literature and wider knowledge. The analysis adopts a selective thematic approach covering: carer variables - the characteristics of different types of carer and different caring situations; types of care - the nature of needs of the cared for person and the features of the care situation; the impact of caring – resilience and coping, employment and health; and carer support and needs assessment. The final section highlights key messages identified from the review. It found that caring involves all sections and age groups of the population, with people are likely to experience one or more periods of caregiving over their lifetime. The uniqueness of each caring relationship is also highlighted. In relation to types of carers, knowledge about ‘hard to reach’ groups, such as BAME and LGBT carers, remains sparse. Older carers are also relatively invisible in policy and research terms. It found that much of the knowledge about carers identified in the review relates to their characteristics, their lived experience and the nature of their caregiving, with relatively less being known about the effectiveness of interventions to support them. The report concludes by offering suggestions for policy and practice. An appendix provides a bibliography of the 3,434 items identified in review, classified into 17 types of reference

Domestic Practices and User Experiences Pre- and Post- Occupancy in a Low-Carbon Development

Examination of how household practices, resource flows and social contexts change after moving into an innovative development in Western Australia, with a focus on the home system of practice. This research demonstrates that while some aspects of domestic practices may change when the context changes, entrenched habits and personal practice history prescribe how practices are performed and the subsequent resources consumed

Finger orientation as an additional input dimension for touchscreens

Since the first digital computer in 1941 and the first personal computer back in 1975, the way we interact with computers has radically changed. The keyboard is still one of the two main input devices for desktop computers which is accompanied most of the time by a mouse or trackpad. However, the interaction with desktop and laptop computers today only make up a small percentage of current interaction with computing devices. Today, we mostly interact with ubiquitous computing devices, and while the first ubiquitous devices were controlled via buttons, this changed with the invention of touchscreens. Moreover, the phone as the most prominent ubiquitous computing device is heavily relying on touch interaction as the dominant input mode. Through direct touch, users can directly interact with graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUI controls can directly be manipulated by simply touching them. However, current touch devices reduce the richness of touch input to two-dimensional positions on the screen. In this thesis, we investigate the potential of enriching a simple touch with additional information about the finger touching the screen. We propose to use the user’s finger orientation as two additional input dimensions. We investigate four key areas which make up the foundation to fully understand finger orientation as an additional input technique. With these insights, we provide designers with the foundation to design new gestures sets and use cases which take the finger orientation into account. We first investigate approaches to recognize finger orientation input and provide ready-to-deploy models to recognize the orientation. Second, we present design guidelines for a comfortable use of finger orientation. Third, we present a method to analyze applications in social settings to design use cases with possible conversation disruption in mind. Lastly, we present three ways how new interaction techniques like finger orientation input can be communicated to the user. This thesis contributes these four key insights to fully understand finger orientation as an additional input technique. Moreover, we combine the key insights to lay the foundation to evaluate every new interaction technique based on the same in-depth evaluation

Understanding modes of dwelling: A transdisciplinary approach to phenomenology of landscape

This transdisciplinary PhD addresses the research question: Can some form of phenomenology provide an effective over-arching paradigm for transdisciplinary research in ethnophysiography? Ethnophysiography studies the way people within a language community conceptualise natural landscape, including terms for landscape features and toponyms (placenames). Dwelling involves conceptualisations and affects regarding physical, utilitarian, cultural, spiritual and ethical relationships with landscape. A key achievement is development of an enhanced ethnophysiography case study methodology, supporting the Ethnophysiography Descriptive Model (EDM). Summary phenomenographic tables were prepared from literature reviews of ethnophysiography, transdisciplinarity, phenomenology, concepts of place and relationships with place. The use of tables, summarising key results of literature reviews (via a phenomenographic approach), is integral to the methodology, to operationalize transdisciplinarity. Some tables are utilised in the PTM-ECS, facilitating identification of relevant issues, collection of appropriate data, and hermeneutic analysis processes. To facilitate comparison of landscape terms and toponyms between languages, the EDM was developed and tested. A key contribution is interpretation of the phenomenological concepts of ‘lifeworld’, ‘topology’ and ‘habitus’. Creation of landscape, as place, involves synergistic integration, in a non-deterministic and emergent manner, of the physical attributes of an area of topographic environment (terrain and ecosystem) with the socio-cultural characteristics of a group of people (including linguistic and spiritual aspects). This produces a particular topo-socio-cultural-spiritual mode-of-dwelling (topology). A partial trial of the new methodology is provided, via an ethnophysiography case study with Manyjilyjarra Aboriginal people in Australia’s Western Desert (undertaken by this author with linguist Clair Hill). It demonstrates how the adopted approach facilitates understanding of traditional forms of dwelling and how this relates to Jukurrpa (The Dreaming), the law, lore and social structure of their society. Review of research processes indicates they effectively utilised key features of transdisciplinarity. A summary of the findings, their potential application, a statement of research limitations, and proposals for further research, are provided