Co-designing smart home technology with people with dementia or Parkinson's disease

Involving users is crucial to designing technology successfully, especially for vulnerable users in health and social care, yet detailed descriptions and critical reflections on the co-design process, techniques and methods are rare. This paper introduces the PERCEPT (PERrsona-CEntred Participatory Technology) approach for the co-design process and we analyse and discuss the lessons learned for each step in this process. We applied PERCEPT in a project to develop a smart home toolset that will allow a person living with early stage dementia or Parkinson's to plan, monitor and self-manage his or her life and well-being more effectively. We present a set of personas which were co-created with people and applied throughout the project in the co-design process. The approach presented in this paper will enable researchers and designers to better engage with target user groups in co-design and point to considerations to be made at each step for vulnerable users

Guest Editorial: Ethics and Privacy in Learning Analytics

The European Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project is responsible for an ongoing series of workshops on ethics and privacy in learning analytics (EP4LA), which have been responsible for driving and transforming activity in these areas. Some of this activity has been brought together with other work in the papers that make up this special issue. These papers cover the creation and development of ethical frameworks, as well as tools and approaches that can be used to address issues of ethics and privacy. This editorial suggests that it is worth taking time to consider the often intertangled issues of ethics, data protection and privacy separately. The challenges mentioned within the special issue are summarised in a table of 22 challenges that are used to identify the values that underpin work in this area. Nine ethical goals are suggested as the editors’ interpretation of the unstated values that lie behind the challenges raised in this paper

65+ Membership Scheme

This report shares the journey of three partners' experiment with digital technology to address societal challenges linked to ageing and social isolation. In recent years artsdepot has seen enormous changes to its business model driven by the advance of digital communication tools, rapidly increasing use of social media, and changing consumer behaviours. The project team felt that digital innovation was typically aimed at the young but wondered if there was greater potential to increase attendance and sales while also addressing social isolation through creating digital innovations with older people. A range of partners worked on the project: artsdepot (arts partner and project lead) is a multi-art form venue based in North Finchley welcoming 130,000 audience members annually. DigiLab (research partner) is an R&D laboratory based at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Ingelby (tech partner) is a digital agency specialising in app building and mobile app development, as well as mobile website design , e-commerce development , customised CRM systems and creative digital media. This project aimed to explore digital technologies that could help create increased levels of arts attendance among older people by identifying barriers and designing digital solutions. artsdepot felt that by enabling increased arts attendance and therefore facilitating opportunities to socialise, they might help establish new friendships while providing enriching creative experiences. Additionally, the team felt there was an additional benefit in terms of demonstrating an economic model for engaging older audiences. Having learnt in the application phase that two thirds of older people have more disposable income than any other age group, artsdepot felt that if it could address other barriers to attendance, it could also improve ticket sales and build a case for increased focus on older audiences

Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars

As an envisaged future of transportation, self-driving cars are being discussed from various perspectives, including social, economical, engineering, computer science, design, and ethics. On the one hand, self-driving cars present new engineering problems that are being gradually successfully solved. On the other hand, social and ethical problems are typically being presented in the form of an idealized unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called trolley problem, which is grossly misleading. We argue that an applied engineering ethical approach for the development of new technology is what is needed; the approach should be applied, meaning that it should focus on the analysis of complex real-world engineering problems. Software plays a crucial role for the control of self-driving cars; therefore, software engineering solutions should seriously handle ethical and social considerations. In this paper we take a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design, and implementations of components, systems, and services and we present practical social and ethical challenges that have to be met, as well as novel expectations for software engineering.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Grouping Individual Investment Preferences in Retirement Savings: A Cluster Analysis of a USS Members Risk Attitude Survey

Cluster analysis is used to identify homogeneous groups of members of USS in terms of risk attitudes. There are two distinct clusters of members in their 40s and 50s. One had previously ‘engaged’ with USS by making additional voluntary contributions. It typically had higher pay, longer tenure, less interest in ethical investing, lower risk capacity, a higher percentage of males, and a higher percentage of academics than members of the ‘disengaged’ cluster. Conditioning only on the attitude to risk responses, there are 18 clusters, with similar but not identical membership, depending on which clustering method is used. The differences in risk aversion across the 18 clusters could be explained largely by differences in the percentage of females and the percentage of couples. Risk aversion increases as the percentage of females in the cluster increases, while it reduces as the percentage of couples increases because of greater risk sharing within the household. Characteristics that other studies have found important determinants of risk attitudes, such as age, income and (pension) wealth, do not turn out to be as significant for USS members. Further, despite being on average more highly educated than the general population, USS members are marginally more risk averse than the general population, controlling for salary, although the difference is not significant

Towards an ethical framework for the design and development of inclusive home-based smart technology for smart spaces for older adults and people with disabilities

Unique ethical, privacy and safety implications arise for people who are reliant on home-based smart technology due to health conditions or disabilities. As a result we need to carefully reflect on our approaches to ethical issues over the life cycle of smart home technology design and the wider living context for end users and relevant stakeholders. In this position paper we highlight a need for a reflective, inclusive ethical framework for the design of inclusive smart spaces. We present key ethical considerations in the design, development and deployment of smart home-based technology for older adults and people with disabilities. We propose a novel ethical framework for the development of inclusive home-based smart technology which combines these key considerations with existing models of design

Designing for designers: Towards the development of accessible ICT products and services using the VERITAS framework

Among key design practices which contribute to the development of inclusive ICT products and services is user testing with people with disabilities. Traditionally, this involves partial or minimal user testing through the usage of standard heuristics, employing external assisting devices, and the direct feedback of impaired users. However, efficiency could be improved if designers could readily analyse the needs of their target audience. The VERITAS framework simulates and systematically analyses how users with various impairments interact with the use of ICT products and services. Findings show that the VERITAS framework is useful to designers, offering an intuitive approach to inclusive design.The work presented in this article forms part of VERITAS, which is funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme (FP7) (grant agreement # 247765 FP7-ICT-2009.7.2)