Karyn Moffatt

The participatory design of a sound and image enhanced daily planner for people with aphasia

Aphasia is a cognitive disorder that impairs speech and language. From interviews with aphasic individuals, their caregivers, and speech-language pathologists, the need was identified for a daily planner that allows aphasic users to independently manage their appointments. We used a participatory design approach to develop ESI Planner (the Enhanced with Sound and Images Planner) for use on a PDA and subsequently evaluated it in a lab study. This methodology was used in order to achieve both usable and adoptable technology. In addition to describing our experience in designing ESI Planner, two main contributions are provided: general guidelines for working with special populations in the development of technology, and design guidelines for accessible handheld technology.

Participatory design with proxies: developing a desktop-PDA system to support people with aphasia

In this paper, we describe the design and preliminary evaluation of a hybrid desktop-handheld system developed to support individuals with aphasia, a disorder which impairs the ability to speak, read, write, or understand language. The system allows its users to develop speech communication through images and sound on a desktop computer and download this speech to a mobile device that can then support communication outside the home. Using a desktop computer for input addresses some of this populations difficulties interacting with handheld devices, while the mobile device addresses stigma and portability issues. A modified participatory design approach was used in which proxies, that is, speech-language pathologists who work with aphasic individuals, assumed the role normally filled by users. This was done because of the difficulties in communicating with the target population and the high variability in aphasic disorders. In addition, the paper presents a case study of the proxy-use participatory design process that illustrates how different interview techniques resulted in different user feedback.

Ephemeral adaptation: the use of gradual onset to improve menu selection performance

We introduce ephemeral adaptation, a new adaptive GUI technique that improves performance by reducing visual search time while maintaining spatial consistency. Ephemeral adaptive interfaces employ gradual onset to draw the users attention to predicted items: adaptively predicted items appear abruptly when the menu is opened, but non-predicted items fade in gradually. To demonstrate the benefit of ephemeral adaptation we conducted two experiments with a total of 48 users to show: (1) that ephemeral adaptive menus are faster than static menus when accuracy is high, and are not significantly slower when it is low and (2) that ephemeral adaptive menus are also faster than adaptive highlighting. While we focused on user-adaptive GUIs, ephemeral adaptation should be applicable to a broad range of visually complex tasks.

Developing steady clicks:: a method of cursor assistance for people with motor impairments

Slipping while clicking and accidental clicks are a source of errors for mouse users with motor impairments. The Steady Clicks assistance feature suppresses these errors by freezing the cursor during mouse clicks, preventing overlapping button presses and suppressing clicks made while the mouse is moving at a high velocity. Evaluation with eleven target users found that Steady Clicks enabled participants to select targets using significantly fewer attempts. Overall task performance times were significantly improved for the five participants with the highest slip rates. Blocking of overlapping and high velocity clicks also shows promise as an error filter. Nine participants preferred Steady Clicks to the unassisted condition. If used in conjunction with existing techniques for cursor positioning, all of the major sources of clicking errors observed in empirical studies would be addressed, enabling faster and more effective mouse use for those who currently struggle with the standard mouse.

A visual recipe book for persons with language impairments

Cooking is a daily activity for many people. However, traditional text recipes are often prohibitively difficult to follow for people with language disorders, such as aphasia. We have developed a multi-modal application that leverages the retained ability of aphasic individuals to recognize image-based representations of objects, providing a presentation format that can be more easily followed than a traditional text recipe. Through a systematic approach to developing a visual language for cooking, and the subsequent case study evaluation of a prototype developed according to this language, we show that a combination of visual instructions and navigational structure can help individuals with relatively large language deficits to cook more independently.

Insights from the aphasia project: designing technology for and with people who have aphasia

This paper explores a number of HCI research issues in the context of the Aphasia Project, a recently established project on the design of assistive technology for aphasic individuals. Key issues include the problems of achieving effective design and evaluation for a user population with an extremely high degree of variance, and user-centered design for a user population with significant communication impairments. We describe the Aphasia Project and our initial approaches to dealing with these issues. Similar issues arise in many areas of assistive technology, so we expect our paper to be of general interest to the research community.

Persuasive technology for health and wellness: State-of-the-art and emerging trends

The evolving field of persuasive and behavior change technology is increasingly targeted at influencing behavior in the area of health and wellness. This paper provides an empirical review of 16 years (85 papers) of literature on persuasive technology for health and wellness to: (1.) answer important questions regarding the effectiveness of persuasive technology for health and wellness, (2.) summarize and highlight trends in the technology design, research methods, motivational strategies, theories, and health behaviors targeted by research to date, (3.) uncover pitfalls of existing persuasive technological interventions for health and wellness, and (4.) suggest directions for future research.

Technologies for aging gracefully

Physiological Needs Two burgeoning examples of technology addressing physiological needs are health-information websites and health-support social media. The majority of Americans now use the Web to gather information about topics including diseases, treatments, alternative medicine, medications, doctors, hospitals, and health insurance [3]. Increasingly, on newsgroups, websites, and blogs, people are posting their own experiences and also commentaries about health or medical issues. These developments have the potential to enable senior citizens, as well as other members of society, to be more knowledgeable as they try to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and also to be better-educated consumers of healthcare. Challenges include being able to judge whether or not data that appears amnesia, aphasia, strokes, multiple sclerosis (MS), or vision loss— as well as normally aging senior citizens. We identify “sweet spots” where technology seems relevant to human need, and envision ways in which we could address a problem, then design, build, test, and, where possible, commercialize solutions. In other words, TAGlab conducts research for the journey through life (see also http://taglab. utoronto.ca/). Technology development to improve the lives of senior citizens may appropriately be framed in terms of the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs (Figure 1). (TAGlab focuses on the top three levels, but we will describe projects at all five levels.) Biological or physiological needs include oxygen, food, water, warmth, fitness, and health. Safety needs are to feel safe and to be free from real or perceived danger. Love or social needs encompass the need for affection and a sense of belonging to family and a circle of friends. Esteem needs include the need to feel satisfied, selfconfident, and valuable; to engage in meaningful work and activities; We all know the world is aging. Yet the figures are staggering. The United Nations recently quantified the phenomenon as follows: Whereas 5.2 percent of the population was over 65 in the year 1950, this percentage is projected to grow to 15.9 percent in 2050, to 27.5 percent by 2150, and to 32.3 percent by 2300 [1]. The good news is modern medicine has made it possible for people to live longer. The bad news is most individuals who live a long life must combat sensory, motor, cognitive, and social challenges such as vision loss, poor hearing, mobility difficulties, memory loss, social isolation, and loneliness. Technology by itself cannot solve these problems. Yet technology designed to empower older adults and to make them more capable, resourceful, and independent can help. In response to this opportunity, in 2009 we formed the Technologies for Aging Gracefully lab (TAGlab). Our mission is to enable full participation in society by individuals with special needs—for example, people afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), in te ra c ti o n s M a y + j u n e 2 0 1 2

Steadied-bubbles: combining techniques to address pen-based pointing errors for younger and older adults

Tablet PCs are gaining popularity but many older adults still struggle with pointing, particularly with two error types: missing, landing and lifting outside the target bounds; and slipping, landing on the target, but slipping off before lifting. To solve these problems, we examined the feasibility of extending and combining existing techniques designed for younger users and the mouse, focusing our investigation on the Bubble cursor and Steady Clicks techniques. Through a laboratory experiment with younger and older adults, we showed that both techniques can be adapted for use in a pen interface, and that combining the two techniques provides greater support than either technique on its own. Though our results were especially pertinent to the older group, both ages benefited from the designs. We also found that technique performance depended on task context. From these findings we established guidelines for technique selection.

Connecting Grandparents and Grandchildren

Grandparent–grandchild relationships are diverse and ever evolving. Effective design of communications technology for them requires consideration of this complexity. This chapter considers grandparent–grandchild relationships from a life-course perspective, with the aim of identifying new opportunities for technology to support them. The grandparent–grandchild relationship is reviewed, discussing why it is important, identifying factors that challenge its success, and outlining its evolution over time. Current technology use is considered with the goal of identifying opportunities for improvement. A number of projects are presented as examples of the breadth of ways in which technology can support different grandparent–grandchild communication needs.