Using Participatory Activities With Seniors to Critique, Build, and Evaluate Mobile Phones
By Massimi, Michael; Baecker, Ronald M.; Wu, Michael; ASSETS 2007 - The Ninth International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 155-162Publication Date: October 15-17, 2007
Presentation of the development of a mobile-phone system co-designed with a group of seniors. The system, called Recall, was based on guided participatory activities used to elicit feedback from seniors about mobile phones. Three major software-design activities were conducted during 7 weekly group meetings using 5 senior women participants: needs analysis, requirements engineering, and paper prototyping. Hardware features identified were (1) Large buttons, (2) Large screen with zoom-in on small text, (3) Secure grip, (4) Jog-wheel selection mechanism (as on a Blackberry), (5) Sturdy but lightweight overall design, and (6) Hearing-aid compatibility. Functions selected were (a) Calendar, (b) Address book, (c) Notebook storing short-term notes such as shopping lists, (d) How to use the cellphone, (e) Reminder alarm, e.g. for returning a phone call, (f) Games, and (g) Emergency. A resulting prototype system was built, using an iMate K-JAM mobile phone running Windows Mobile 5OS as a platform, incorporating hardware features identified and featuring 5 of the 7 preferred functions. Seniors’ performance was evaluated through user tests and a 4-week real-world deployment with 2 of the participants. Limitations to the study and implications for future work are discussed.
Published by: Association for Computing Machinery (Website:http://www.acm.org)
SIGACCESS (ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing) (Web Site: http://www.sigaccess.org )
Link to text: http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/rmb/papers/D65.pdf
