Assignment 3: Designs for Blindness

 

Yahan Li (Yahan.Li.2556@student.uu.se)

Blindness can cause distinguished stigmatization because more than 80% of perceptions are based on visual sense and when a blind person wants to act like others, it will be really easy to tell he or she has visual impairment. However, living in a different way is not the synonym of stigmatization. Apart from changing the social bias, we can also use better non-excluding designs to minimize stigmatization and broaden the definition of normality.

Figure 1: Cellphone for blind people

In my view, minimizing stigmatization is to offer specific supports for people with impairments in a more appropriate way that can make them less different from people without impairments. While broadening the meaning of normality means to offer essentially the same supports for both groups.

 

And in this article, I would like to present my ideas of better designs aiming at helping blind people. Please be aware of that some of them have already made significant progress while some are kind of utopia from my wild imagination.

 

1. Minimizing stigmatization

(1) Cool protecting glasses

Except for the concern of aesthetics, 80% of the blind people have weak abilities to see, so the glasses are useful to protect the remaining vision. By designing beautiful protecting glasses for them, the outlook of blind people can be more appealing and they can show their unique personality. Short-sighted people also wear glasses but they have more stylish choices. Therefore, it is vital for blind people have brilliant designed glasses of their special use.

 

(2) Walking support

We can design dedicate walking support device embedded in usual things to reduce stigmatization, such as navigational smart cap, glasses or even jackets. Using canes or guide dogs are useful to some extent but they can cause distinctive awareness, which may turn to stigmatization. By offering embedded walking support, blind people can reach the places as they like without clearly “extra”  help.

And since nowadays blind people cannot fully rely on the walking cane or  urban infrastructure, these technical designs may as well provide more secure and efficient walking and navigational support.

 

(3)Universal websites and other electronical devices

In 21^st century we are all living in the information society. It is hard to imagine living without computer. The Internet is full of useful information resources so we should not exclude blind people from this wonderful treasure. We can add sound information to help blind people know the structure of the website and choose which part they want to have a deep insight. The computer system, both the software and hardware, should be built in an accessible way, too. Perhaps we will have changeable interface in the future so that blind people can feel the uneven surface of picture and Braille.

 

2. Broadening the area of normality

 

(1) Smart Home/ Smart building

Figure 2:Blueprint of smart home

 

It is a great challenge for the blind to tell the location of furniture, the water tap and other daily equipment. If houses can provide audio support and haptic clues, it will be easier for them to do indoors activities. For example, blind people can ask a remote controller or a robot where the stove is and it will guide the user to get it. And the user can follow a line of dots to reach to the rotary knob and he or she knows the temperature settings by tactile clues. A timer will start when the stove begins working and the user can easily know the time and current temperature of cooking. Maybe the controller or robot can give suggestion about when to turn of the fire, too.

Smart home/ smart buildings have been popular concepts in recent years. It seems that we take it for granted that using intelligent devices in rooms is convenient and helpful, so we can naturally derive that for people with visual impairment it is certainly acceptable to receive help from well-designed products.

There are plenty of things to realize with smart home/ smart buildings. If the blind can deal with daily trivial things simply by some feedback from the system, they can gain better self-images and broaden the meaning of normality.

 

(2) “Synesthesia” Design

 

Synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. (Reference: Wikipedia, the column“Synesthesia”) Here I use it as a metaphor implying using other sensory to create visual image. For patients with synesthesia, they can see colors of the sounds, see flavors and etc. If a person just has damage of eyeballs, not including the brain or nerves, there is a chance for him or her to “see” images by other sensory organs. There is already a design to put stimulating sensors below the tongues to help the blind people get sort of view in their brain. (Reference: BrainPort, sensory information can be sent to one’s brain via a signal from the BrainPort (and its associated sensor) that terminates in an electrode array which sits atop the tongue) A relevant product is BrailleSight, which can help blind people “see” by tactile feedback.

This method can be widely used even among normal people. Some people are much admired to those having synesthesia since it sounds amazing to be able to listen to colors. Some treat this disease as gifts by god. It is really thrilling that we are possibly to create the connections between different senses and surely this design can broaden the area of being normal.

Figure 3: Synesthesia — listening to colors

 

(3) Audio book and voice reader

Children and people spending a lot of time in commuting enjoy listening to audio books. So it is a good idea for blind people to learn from audio books. “Normal” people can hear texts, so do blind people. However, many books are not available in the audio format now and some books cannot be listened to (e.g. dictionaries and encyclopedia). Therefore, it is important to help blind people get rid of the limited choice range of audio books. And an automatic voice reader can help with that by scanning the text and read it for the user. We have this type of product now but there is still room for improvement of accuracy. And maybe in the future we can use the scanner to tell the user what a picture or diagram looks like.

 

Assignment 2 “Blind”

In the second assignment we were asked to watch a Korean movie called “Blind” I remember that I’ve watched it a few years back, everything back then seemed to make sense. But I’ve actually managed to spot a few obvious problems when I watched it again now.

I think the first error was actually pretty hard to spot (8.09 in the movie) it was when the main female character Min Soo-ah actually slowed down before turning right and crossing a street. It seemed that she knew where to turn in advance, while I think it’s impossible to have such fast response if she was solely relying on the feedback from the blind path.

The second thing that I find interesting was about how fictional it was in many circumstances in the movie. Typical examples were when she can determine stranger’s age, physique and height by only hearing their voices and using reverberation and intuition. And also she could also use echolocation to determine people’s position which is kind of like a super power in the comic books. One typical example in the movie was in 1:44:34 where she accurately hit the bad guy on the face with a brick, by using an ultrasonic feedback device. I think this is a fairly common technique used in most of the movies just to make the movie more interesting to watch.

There were some pretty obvious errors in this movie where the main female character could precisely perform many actions. In 41:49 she could put food in the mouth without any struggle, at that point I’ve actually paused the movie and tried if I could put food in my mouth accurately with my eyes closed. It turned out that it was not as hard as imagined, but still with minor struggle, like when I had the spoon too low or a bit too high. There was also this final point which I find a bit confusing, it was when the main female character in the movie didn’t use the blind path when she got off the metro in 1:03:36, the reason could probably be that she was holding the guiding dog, but it felt really strange after she started running and headed for the blind path while holding the guiding dog.

Finally, there was a scene where it’s not reasonable, it was when the bad guy was chasing Min-Soo ah and no matter how fast he chased, he still cannot reach her. In real life I don’t think it’s possible for blind people to run that fast and straight, even if she was following a blind path. This experience is from the first pair assignment when we tested the blind path in the central station, we’ve tried to walk on the path while having eyes closed, none of us could walk straight and keep our steps on the path all the time, we had to make adjustments all the time when we felt that we were out of the path.

Some interesting observations were mainly about how Min-Soo ah used her phone throughout the movie. At a certain point of the movie, I thought about how she can accurately dial the numbers while it’s a phone with touchscreen with only audio feedback. Later on I’ve figured it out that she could actually hold down her finger until she touches the right number, by doing so she can accurately dial a set of numbers. Even though, I think it was unrealistic when she performed quick actions on her phone during some urgent circumstances in the movie.

Another interesting point was when she crossed the street while it was red in the beginning of the movie. The drivers shouted at her loudly and didn’t show any respect for her, this phenomenon clearly showed that there are cultural differences when it comes to disabilities and impairments. For example, if similar situation is presented in Sweden, I don’t think drivers would show any disrespect to the visually impaired person. But that could also be different from person to person.

Overall, I have to say that both the main female actress and the director of the movie did a great job, because of these errors can only be spotted if viewers are watching the movie carefully while thinking about the possible problems of being visually impaired. I liked the story of the movie a lot and it also gave me some insight about how a life could be as a visually impaired person.

Assignment 2: Blind

We saw “Blind”, a Korean movie, for this assignment. In the movie, we follow the woman Soo-ah who became blind in a car accident three years ago. She “witnesses” a crime and helps a police to find the perpetrator, even though her involvement makes her a subject to the perpetrator’s murderous wrath.

I found it hard to find blatant errors in the movie, maybe because I don’t have experience with being blind myself, nor have I met many blind people. However, I did notice that the protagonist seemed to be very good at finding her way as blind, and her sense of smell and hearing seemed very acute. While other senses usually get better when another is worse, I’m not sure if I buy that they get better so quickly. But maybe it’s just me who underestimate the brain’s plasticity.

Another thing I found curious was that she has lights turned on in her apartment sometimes. There are a few reasons for this that I can think of: perhaps the lights are for the dog or some plants (not that I saw any in the movie). Maybe the lamp is lit to show potential burglars that someone’s home. Or maybe it’s just for us, the audience, so that we can see what’s going on.

When Soo-ah gets out of the taxi she knows in which direction to go. The street is tilted upwards and she probably knows from where the car drove, and she has probably traveled there many times, but she seems very sure on which direction her destination is.

I’m not entirely sure how she drops a washing machine (?) in front of a door in order to trap the murderer in the other room. While it’s not impossible, it seems like she knew the distance between the machine and the door very accurately. For me, it’s hard to see how to estimate this distance without vision.

I’m also not sure what’s happening in the scene where she sets fire to the perpetrator. It seems like she knows where a mirror is placed, and manages to time to move away from it just when she is about to get hit by a bat. Instead, the murdered hits the mirror, and I guess the lit match she was holding is dropped on gasoline. Where the gasoline comes from is unclear, but I’d assume Soo-ah had poured it out and planned to set it on fire when the murderer was standing in it.

Finally, she managed to time her final hit on the murderer very accurately, even though she had never used the vibration tool before. I assume that a new aid would take some time to learn how to use it. Maybe she got lucky.

There are many things I wonder about a blind person’s daily life. A few interesting observations I had from the movie was Soo-ah’s cell phone, computer, and make-up.

The phone itself seemed like a quite normal phone except that it exclaimed things like “answer call” and such. How she found the correct name to call someone herself I still don’t understand; I just saw that she slid her fingers up a list of names.

Unfortunately, the scene when she uses her computer is very brief, but she had some kind of special keyboard. I wonder how it works and how a blind person finds their way to a specific website. I couldn’t hear if the key presses generated some audio feedback, but maybe it did?

I also found it fascinating that she bothered with make-up. Sure, she didn’t use mascara or eyeliner (which I can only imagine must be a nightmare to use without being able to see), but she used powder and lipstick with great care.

Assignment 2, The movie “Blind”

by: Yahan Li ( Yahan.Li.2556@student.uu.se)

PART 1 Errors in the movies
1. The blind people cannot tell other`s height by voice.
In the movie, the blind lady can tell the height of the policeman and the murderer by their voice based on the position of throat. However, I believe this is impossible. First, when the policeman casually questions the lady, he is sitting down on his chair and bending his back, so it is not possible to tell his height because a taller man and a shorter man with this pose can have the same position of their throats. Therefore, the blind lady cannot tell the height when the policeman sits down.
Furthermore, let`s assume that the lady has a chance to heard the policeman`s voice when he is standing up. Different people can have different characteristics of their bodies. For example, some people have longer necks while some have smaller faces. As a result, A 1.76 meter-high man (the murderer) and a 1.70 meter-high man (the policeman) can have the same position of their throats when they stand up.
Blind people can surely tell the position of the source of sound, but it is exaggerated in this movie.

2. The blind people cannot tell other`s physique by echoes, at least in a common room.
The speed of sound is 340m/s, and the hearing ability of human has a limitation: if one wants to distinguish the echo from the original sound, the delay time must be larger than 0.1s. So the transmission distance between the sound source and the obstacle must be longer than 17m (340*0.1 / 2 = 17). However, the room in the police station is quite small, so the blind lady cannot tell the echoes at all.
What`s more, I doubt whether human can use echoes to locate things because other animals who can manage that use ultrasonic waves, such as bats and dolphins. Ultrasound loses little energy when goes across a long distance so it is ideal for detecting objects far away. But human cannot hear ultrasound at all so I think nature didn`t give us the privilege to detect things by sound when human were created.

3. The ability for blind people to keep balance when running fast is misleading.
I participated an experiment of keeping balance when I took a yoga course a year ago. In that test, I was required to close my eyes and stood only with one foot. And my partner counted how many seconds I could keep balance. This experiment is very challenging, my best score was 20s and most of my classmates could only stand for less than 10s. And my teacher told us that the people with excellent sense of balance can stand about 90s. Therefore, it is really hard for me to imagine a blind lady can keep running as fast as she can escape for a long time on the uneven surface of the special path for blind people.

4. The distance sensor (Ultra-cane) cannot tell when the enemy is right in the front of you.
The theatrical climax comes when the leading actress hits the bastard`s head with the help of the distance sensor. The distance sensor can tell you whether something is getting closer by the vibration but you can only know the trend it moves, not the precise location of it. Maybe the blind lady can use the screaming of the bad guy to locate him, but I think it is still not practical because the evil man runs very fast and the sound is not steady because of normal breathe.

 
PART 2 New findings of being blind:
1. The blind lady can type with a keyboard having sound remind functions. In the movie, when the lady wants to study criminal psychology, she can read Braille and type with that machine very quickly. It is inspiring for me to realize that we can help blind people use the colorful Internet resources by simply providing sound for websites and input devices.

2. The blind lady can use mobile phone to help herself stayed in connection. Her mobile phone also has the function to tell her the instruction she just gave. So once again the lady can follow the mainstream of high-tech society.

To sum up, we, as product designers, can help the disabled people have better life quality by non-excluding design. Just with a small improvement of current designs, we can help them enjoy the excitement and benefit of modern high-tech lifestyle.

Findings of The White Path Experiment

By: Yahan Li (Yahan.Li.2556@student.uu.se )

I did this experiment on this Friday since I was registered for this course just a few days ago. The central station seemed to be very busy because the weekend was coming. And I invited a friend with me and we repeated the experiment for 3 times and here are the findings.

And I would like to use a figure to explain the differences between the three experiments:

Explanations of the figure:
It seems really lucky for me to walk along the whole path since the first time I tried. The whole path is about 150 meters long and it takes me 2min 30s to complete the path if I opened my eyes.
In the first and second time, I used a colorful scarf to cover my eyes as a symbol telling others that I cannot see, which is also a stigma for me. And I think this helped a lot because my friend kept telling me that there were people in front of me and they changed their walking directions to avoid hitting me.  I stopped 5 times in the first experiment mainly because my friend warned me in advance but I didn`t hit anyone. While in the third experiment, I was stopped by her because people were standing on the white path and my friend had to ask other people to move.
Another important factor is the amount of people: the more people in the station, the more nervous I was and the more times I stopped.

What can you feel?
I can use my feet to feel the uneven surface but sometimes it was difficult for me to tell whether I was standing on the white path or not. The first time I was really nervous especially when I heard someone was passing by and even hitting me. And it was hard for me to keep balance all the time.
Do you trust walking with eyes closed?
      Yes and no.
I completed the whole path for three times because I knew my friend was beside me and I believed that she can protect me. But if I was alone, I think I  can not finish the path because there were always people standing on the white path.
 Are they useful?
Sort of, but it can better.
It seems that the path was built a long time ago and the surface doesn`t have very clear border between the rills. Maybe the blind people can feel the uneven surface better but sometimes I was not sure whether I was in the right way.
And there is a sudden change of the height of the path, which surprised me twice. There should be a block full of spots to remind the blind people.
Later we found that in some streets nearby, there is no path for blind people at all. So how can blind people walk in these area?
Do you think people know about them?
At first we assumed people will know but to make sure we asked 5 people for their opinion. Only 2 people knew the path is for blind people. Among the 3 people who didn`t know, 2 of them guessed it is water tube.
And we checked that there was no signs to remind people to be aware of the white path and keep it clear. So no wonder that there were many people walking across or standing on the white path.
To sum up, many people have no idea what the path is even it seems like common sense to know.

Making an ATM usable by a blind person

After watching Tommy Edison using an ATM (and how long it took him), my thoughts were mainly stuck in two ideas: he was forced to carry earphones with him and the instructions given were in some way directed to people with no visual impairments.

Although earphones are not objects too big to be carried along, one does not always have a pair in his/her pockets (especially in situations where you don’t have pockets!). Thus, using the ATM becomes something that needs to be planned at at least some level. There is little room for spontaneity.

A solution for this is to provide earphones at the ATM itself. The problem with earphones is that they go right in the ear, so having different people using the same pair does not sound like a good practice. Though probably a bit more expensive, headphones are a better solution. They could be chained to the ATM, or some other option that prevented people from stealing them. In any case, it seems reasonable to have the instructions said only for the user, to avoid bystanders hearing details that only concern the owner of that bank account.

The second thought was on what we base our metaphors. In the video they point out a location by using a clock metaphor. This is based on a visual aspect that a blind person can only learn if explained, but it really does not make that much sense (especially if we can just use a different one). A similar situation happened to a researcher developing a software that taught yoga to blind people: when the metaphor “try to touch the sky” was used, users were a bit at a loss. However, when they were told to try to reach a high self, they completely understand. This shows that, as usual, it is crucial to be able to put ourselves as designers in the shoes of the users and see what kind of instructions fit best in their everyday life.

User experience and impairments

To evaluate usability, one of the questions proposed is “is it easy to use?”. But, for some kinds of products, this maybe not be the point of the artifact. For example, in a game, in order to make the experience better, we need the task to be sufficiently challenging to be engaging. However, usability as synonym for easiness may refer to the fact that the use of the tools to perform the tasks we have chosen to solve the puzzle of the game should not be in themselves part of the challenge. In other words, there is a complex relationship between usability and stimulation depending on the goal of the product.

Estimating and measuring emotions is, in general, a hard task. But what happens in the case of autism? It gets even harder. If a person has problems understanding and expressing their feelings and emotions, it would be difficult to get to know them by observations or interviews. How does this affect the design of user experience? On the other hand, if we consider autistic people no different from other people except from this fact of feelings communication and understanding, then do we need to design differently to include them? Maybe the answer is that it is more difficult to have them as testers, as the feedback is harder to get from them; but, if we select a varied sample of testers, they should represent a wider range of users. Including those with autism.

What about other kinds of impairments? If we are designing a game, should we include in testers for our evaluation that have sight, hearing, cognitive or other impairments? A simpler case may be movies. At high school I remember just assuming that blind people had no interest in films, as they were missing out most of the experience. However, there was a girl whose mother was blind and they had a great times watching a movie together: the daughter would tell the mother what was happening that couldn’t be deduced from the sound and they both enjoyed those two hours. The experience was different for each of them, but that was it. So maybe including this mother in the team to give feedback is a good idea: who better than her to say if the voices were expressing the characters’ feelings well enough?

Home Design for Elderly* People

* After reading articles like this I am generally more careful to not label people according to their age, but for the sake of simplifying the use of language for this assignment I chose to use the word “elderly” to describe people of higher age with some sort of age-related impairment.

Up until now, we have been discussing three main categories of age-related impairments; cognitive impairments, perceptual impairments, and physical impairments. In order to be able to design homes for elderly people that will support them during different stages of the aging process, designers must take these categories of impairments into consideration. Only then will the the designs reflect the user’s needs and truly offset the effects of their conditions.

Below I will suggest different possible solutions that could be incorporated into a flat design (flat as in apartment, not the current hype). I will categorize them according to the categories of impairment previously mentioned.

Cognitive problems

It is not uncommon that the daily life of elderly people is troubled by a weakened state of their cognitive abilities. Dementia is an example of a cognitive problem affecting some elderly people, and common symptoms are memory loss, communication issues and mood changes. The symptoms may cause that elderly people with this condition have a hard time finding what they are looking for in their home, or they could be confused by suddenly changing settings in their home while moving around, or they could even be unmotivated to engage in activity if that implies too much of an effort. Some proactive measures to help elderly people cope with these symptoms are to design spaces according to their purpose and to communicate that purpose distinctively. An example of a design flaw in this case would be to place to similar doors next to each other, one being the entry to the washroom and the other being the closet. Likewise, living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms should be designed purposefully where details are clear and the chance of miscommunication is minimal. In this case, shape and contrast of objects and details in different rooms are important factors to consider to make the design more communicative.

Perceptual problems

Human perception is also something that most often becomes weaker as we age, due to the gradual weakened state of our senses. Weakened eye-sight and hearing are common issues that will be covered here, but also the weakened state of taste and smell could be taken into consideration when designing possible solutions in this context. First and foremost, people with limited eye-sight or hearing are most likely best supported in static environments where visual and auditory noise is minimal. In other words, one of the first things that should be taken into consideration is whether or not the construction of the flat can resist dynamic visual and auditory conditions. Examples of these conditions are flashing lights from the street, large variations in noise due to the location of the home, or rapid weather changes. Evident solutions to these issues are window blinds and sound-reducing isolation, but may be varied according to the demands that different settings imply.

A general rule in design is to reduce clutter as much as possible, and this applies, to a very large extent, also when designing for visual and auditory impairments. Examples of cluttered visual designs are button interfaces with too many similar buttons, or flooring with different texture and luster, which make the attributes of the floor surface hard to distinguish. Examples of cluttered auditory designs are audio cues from different electronic appliances that blend in to current background noise and thus are not distinctive enough to be heard. Regardless of visual or auditory design, it is important to consider the intensity of whatever this design is communicating. The intensity of the communicative signal should be at an adequate level and the contrast between the signal and the background should be sufficiently distinctive. As a proactive measure, all possible distractions should also be counteracted, for example by covering the home with matte surfaces to avoid distracting glares or by designing an open planning for the home to allow audio cues to travel easier and thus be more resounding.

Physical problems

Age implies physical change, which does not necessarily have to be an inhibiting factor to daily activity. At least not if living in an environment that addresses these physical changes. A quite common and unfortunate consequence of physical change among elderly people is the increased risk of falling accidents. Proactive measures against these accidents should therefore be included in all designs of homes for elderly people. Examples of appropriate measures are non-slip floors in washrooms, consistent floor surfaces to avoid misinterpretation (with special consideration to the contrast in color and covering texture), exclusion of possible obstacles such as carpets or table legs, exclusion of thresholds, and the addition of handrails in appropriate places as balancing support.

Although having physical issues that inhibits mobility, elderly people should be enabled and encouraged to move freely in their own homes and to be independent in their daily activities to the largest possible extent. Designs that would allow this include lowered storage space such as drawers and cupboards at appropriate heights, handrails as previously mentioned, seating devices for leg rest during showers and cooking or similar, and increased size of door frames and increased height of tables for easier access with wheelchairs. A good example of the latter is the Inclusive Table suggested by Timlin and Rysenbry (2010) that is designed to accommodate wheelchairs while still being aesthetically pleasing (see image below). The table is high enough for wheelchair users to come close enough to be able to eat without spilling, it has rounded edges to be more tactile and to lower impact in the event of someone falling into it, and also the table surface is contrasted to its edges to better communicate the limits of the surface area.

The Inclusive Table (Timlin & Rysenbry, 2010) is a supportive aid mainly for wheelchair users and people with visual impairments.

Final words

A home for elderly people should strongly correlate to the current needs of the residents, which puts further weight on a need-driven Universal Design process. It is essential that design in a context like this is purposeful and not solely functional, seeing that function is useless without a purpose. And the purpose we are (or should be) designing for is to enhance life quality. After all, our aim is not to help people survive, but to support them in living.

References

Dvorsky, T. & Pettipas, J. (2007) Elder-Friendly Design Interventions: Acute Care Hospitals Can Learn from Long-Term Care Residences. Available here: http://www.informedesign.org/_news/aug_v02-p.pdf

Fozard, J. L. et al. (1993) Sensory And Perceptual Considerations In Designing Environments For The Elderly. Available here: http://www.homemods.org/resources/life-span/sensory.shtml

Grant-Savela, S. Living Rooms & Social Spaces. Available at: https://www4.uwm.edu/dementiadesigninfo/data/white_papers/Living%20Rooms%20and%20Social%20Spaces.pdf

Timlin, G. & Rysenbry, N. (2010) Design for Dementia: Improving dining and bedroom environments in care homes. Available at: http://www.hhc.rca.ac.uk/CMS/files/DESIGN_FOR_DEMENTIA%20_w.pdf

All references accessed as late as October 22, 2013.

I want to grow old in here

Feeling old could be defined as realizing that we are not able to do what we were able to do before, in the same way. We may realize this physically (e.g. joint problems when running) or socially (e.g. problems understanding younger people’s slang). For the latter, and taking the case of teenagers, it is even important to have this distinction, as they need this difference to find their identity. Thus, in this post I will be focusing only on how someone grows old physically and how an apartment may be designed to support this.

Designing for the elderly is designing for a very heterogeneous group of people. Some like to cook, to have their house clean. Others don’t care that much and have more interest in keeping in shape and being outdoors. Some are very family-oriented and want to keep a highly active social life. In fact, all of us will hopefully grow old, so designing for the elderly is, in the end, designing for everyone. Thus, multiple needs should be covered and multiple options should be available. But none of these should be forced, while simplicity of use should be kept at all times.

Some other considerations to take into account when we design to cover needs related to impairments are those related to the people affected indirectly by them. If we put a loud beep as an indicator, would that be upsetting for bystanders? Even more importantly, how do our solutions affect the people that spend long and quality time with the person impaired? When exploring the needs, we should cater our solutions to also meet the needs of family, therapists, etc. as far as they are concerned with our user.

Text as indicator for interaction should try to be avoid, as well as acronyms. This is because, especially in the case of the latter, understanding involves memory skills. The more complicated the instructions are, the more probable is that a person developing memory loss will have problems recalling how to use the artifact. If possible, pictures are usually preferable. The best option may be to have both text and picture, for memory training and also to accommodate different kinds of users. Allowing users to customize these pictures can be a better solution. Maybe one picture triggers one memory till one point, where another picture will do the trick faster or better. Or maybe we just get tired of one and like to change from time to time. Feeling in a wintery mood? Make your apartment look more Christmasy!

The customization of the apartment may be performed by the one living there or by close people (again, family, therapists, etc.). The addition of profiles to the system would allow to select a set of possible actions and changes for different users of the system. One issue I have not been able to solve in a satisfactory way is what should be included in each set. At the wheelchair trial session, we saw that we overworry about safety sometimes and users may want to have less safety precautions. My concern in the case of cognitive impairments is that the person is suddenly not able anymore to clearly discern which he/she is able to do and which she/he is not. In this case, another user should have more permissions in the system to include safety options (rejected by the person with the impairment). Is this ethical? How do we know what is best for another person? Where is the line drawn? I am afraid I have not a good answer for these questions.

Several ways to have notes on things that need to be remembered should be spread across the apartment: a screen on fridge door, to immediately write down what needs to be bought. With a touchable interface, so only pointing with one finger is needed (in case of lost of fine motor skills). Something similar to have reminders for medicines, in a calendar for family birthdays, doctor appointments, etc. Other data should be possible to add, e.g. for a doctor appointment what do I need to bring, (maybe X-ray results?), who is coming with me, how do I get there? Can I check if that person is free to give me a lift? Having everything in one place will more likely prevent me from forgetting to take care of all the details. As to delay potential dementia, gamification of house chores, etc. could help to keep memory active and motivate the user to do it.

Memory loss will make a person more prone to forgetting to turn off the kitchen stove, for example. Smoke detectors are something we have in every house. But what if this person has also a hearing impairment? A nontraditional solution could be to have the floor slightly vibrate, so that anyone anywhere in the house can perceive it. Anywhere? And if you are sleeping, how can we wake you up? Having the bed vibrating? What happens if you are in the shower? I have yet no answer for this either.

Anything that needs to be pushed in the house should not involve being strong. Aids for the soap, as seen in some clinics (like in the one in the picture) are an inspiration for this. Maybe we could use a similar idea for doors? Some doors may need to be heavy (do they?), due to fire prevention, but that doesn’t mean we need to do all the effort to push them. What about using the same sensor/button combination to open doors at campus? Sometimes we may see this button as for “lazy” people but… is using the knob and pulling such a workout? Should it be?

Another need I have noticed in the early and, I would say, in anyone, is the need of having warm floors in winter. Heated floors should be part of the ideal apartment. As with any other feature of the apartment,  customization is key (only I know how hot I want the floor) and it would be even better if it included recommendations (“the optimal temperature, with your medical history, is 25 ºC”).

These recommendations can be based on the data collected by monitoring the vital constants of the user. In Madrid (and probably in lots of other places) there is a social service, which consists of sending assistance when the user presses a button contained in a medallion that can be easily carried in a chain around the neck. This medallion could read vital constants and sends them to nurse when button is pressed, so that more information about the problem is known as soon as possible. The medallion could also beep if constants reach a dangerous level (low blood pressure, insulin levels, etc.)

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, there are lots of people who  like to keep their house dust-clean. The appearance of visual impairments may decrease the ability of finding dusty spots. To aid in this, dust sensors can be included and “dusty” zones may be shown in a small map of the apartment.

Some other improvements may be made for the social needs. For instance, having slide shows photo frames, maybe one for each family member, so that pictures of beloved ones are displayed around the house. What about adding videos? Sound can be turn on/off, and it is important to remember that, for some people, these kinds of sounds keep them company.

Link

How some people who are blind from birth perceive their surroundings

I stumbled upon this link in my news feed on Facebook. Pretty fascinating read!