Designing tangible Interaction for accessible communication technologies for elderly people

Abstract

The changes in demographic structures and the concurrent rapid technological development pose challenges to our ageing society. In this thesis, we investigate, whether systems with Tangible User Interfaces can help to provide accessible communication technologies for elderly people. Based on a theoretical foundation from the area of tangible user interfaces, tangible interaction, intuitive usability, and multimodality, we have systematically analysed the impact of interface design, user involvement, and multimodal interaction on accessibility. The core of this thesis is the description of a three-year participatory design process of a concrete, tangible communication technology, with a total of 35 participants, aged between 53 and 83. During the workshops, various prototypes were tested and further developed with potential users. The detailed planning, the thorough implementation, and the structured analysis of these workshops were essential criteria for the successful elaboration of valuable contributions to the research field of accessible technologies for elderly people and the implementation of a functional technical device. The resulting prototype allows the use of communication channels through tangible interface elements. The interface elements consists of objects with generic form and personal objects with special meaning to the users. The use of generic objects creates a token + constraint relation with a strong perceived affordance for the interaction. The visual language of these objects is chosen by personal annotation and design according to the users preferences, which additionally supports intuitive use. The communication partner is selected via personal objects with special meaning to the user. The evaluations show that the resulting cognitive bridge between the personal objects and the underlying functionality supports the user interaction. To summarize, we provide the AMPTA model (Accessibility, Multimodality, Personalization, Tangible User Interface, Age) to visualize the interplay of our results. The findings of this thesis show that elderly people benefit from Tangible User Interfaces through the usage of a clear form language, the use of personalized and autobiographical interface elements and increased learnability. Furthermore, multimodality is an essential factor, not only for the design of the user interface, but also for the evaluation and analysis of user-centred workshops. Our results represent an important contribution towards providing accessible communication technologies for elderly people and encompass approaches to design and develop them participatorily.