Jo Lumsden

Mobile assistive technologies for the visually impaired

There are around 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and around 370,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted in the UK. Ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are increasing the scope for IT-based mobile assistive technologies to facilitate the independence, safety, and improved quality of life of the visually impaired. Research is being directed at making mobile phones and other handheld devices accessible via our haptic (touch) and audio sensory channels. We review research and innovation within the field of mobile assistive technology for the visually impaired and, in so doing, highlight the need for successful collaboration between clinical expertise, computer science, and domain users to realize fully the potential benefits of such technologies. We initially reflect on research that has been conducted to make mobile phones more accessible to people with vision loss. We then discuss innovative assistive applications designed for the visually impaired that are either delivered via mainstream devices and can be used while in motion (e.g., mobile phones) or are embedded within an environment that may be in motion (e.g., public transport) or within which the user may be in motion (e.g., smart homes).

An integrated view of data quality in Earth observation

Data quality is a difficult notion to define precisely, and different communities have different views and understandings of the subject. This causes confusion, a lack of harmonization of data across communities and omission of vital quality information. For some existing data infrastructures, data quality standards cannot address the problem adequately and cannot fulfil all user needs or cover all concepts of data quality. In this study, we discuss some philosophical issues on data quality. We identify actual user needs on data quality, review existing standards and specifications on data quality, and propose an integrated model for data quality in the field of Earth observation (EO). We also propose a practical mechanism for applying the integrated quality information model to a large number of datasets through metadata inheritance. While our data quality management approach is in the domain of EO, we believe that the ideas and methodologies for data quality management can be applied to wider domains and disciplines to facilitate quality-enabled scientific research.

2nd Workshop on Designing with Older Adults: Towards a Complete Methodology

The ageing process can interfere considerably with the use of mobile devices, e.g. due to changes in vision, attention, and motor control. Designing mobile technology with older adults poses its own challenges. In the absence of a complete methodology for working with older users, researchers and designers are often left to improvise their own methods. This can result in co-design relationships being compromised and weak design insights emerging. How can we best adapt or modify existing methods for working with this group?

Participatory Design: How to Engage Older Adults in Participatory Design Activities

Ongoing advances in mobile technologies have the potential to improve independence and quality of life of older adults by supporting the delivery of personalised and ubiquitous healthcare solutions. The authors are actively engaged in participatory, user-focused research to create a mobile assistive healthcare-related intervention for persons with age-related macular degeneration AMD: the authors report here on our participatory research in which participatory design PD has been positively adopted and adapted for the design of our mobile assistive technology. The authors discuss their work as a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of technology for and importantly with older adults. The authors argue it is largely impossible to achieve informed and effective design and development of healthcare-related technologies without employing participatory approaches, and outline recommendations for engaging in participatory design with older adults with impairments based on practical experience.

Re-imagining commonly used mobile interfaces for older adults

Many countries have an increasingly aging population. In recent years, mobile technologies have had a massive impact on social and working lives. As the size of the older user population rises, many people will want to continue professional, social and lifestyle usage of mobiles into 70s and beyond. Mobile technologies can lead to increased community involvement and personal independence. While mobile technologies can provide many opportunities, the aging process can interfere with their use. This workshop brings together researchers who are re-imagining common mobile interfaces so that they are more suited to use by older adults.

Visualisation of Trust and Quality Information for Geospatial Dataset Selection and Use: Drawing Trust Presentation Comparisons with B2C e-Commerce

The evaluation of geospatial data quality and trustworthiness presents a major challenge to geospatial data users when making a dataset selection decision. Part of the problem arises from the inconsistent and patchy nature of data quality information, which makes intercomparison very difficult. Over recent years, the production and availability of geospatial data has significantly increased, facilitated by the recent explosion of Web-based catalogues, portals, standards and services, and by initiatives such as INSPIRE and GEOSS. Despite this significant growth in availability of geospatial data and the fact that geospatial datasets can, in many respects, be considered commercial products that are available for purchase online, consumer trust has to date received relatively little attention in the GIS domain.