In this paper we present a design project involving primary end users who have declining cognitive abilities such as memory, communication, and problem solving. We are designing interactive multimedia with personalized life stories for individuals with Alzheimer's disease. We conducted a case study to discover and address the design challenges for this project. A particular challenge is a limited ability to communicate with the primary end users. In this paper, we present design methods that take this challenge into consideration. Our goal is to contribute insight into designing for users with cognitive disabilities, and to present methodologies that are useful for designers who have a limited ability to interact or communicate with end users.
Interviews with stakeholders can be a useful method for identifying user needs and establishing requirements. However, interviews are also problematic. They are time consuming and may result in insufficient, irrelevant or invalid data. Our goal is to reexamine the methodology of interview design, to determine how various contextual factors affect the success of interviews in requirements engineering. We present a case study of a Web conferencing system used by a support group for spousal caregivers of people with dementia. Two sets of interviews were conducted to identify requirements for a new version of the system. Both sets of interviews had the same information elicitation goals, but each used different interview tactics. A comparison of the participants' responses to each format offers insights into the relationship between the interview context and the relative success of each interview technique for eliciting the desired information. As a result of what we learned, we propose a framework to help analysts design interviews and chose tactics based on the context of the elicitation process. We call this the contextual risk analysis framework.
This paper describes the impact of user research on the accessibility features of the Windows Vista operating system. Conducting user research for a complex and widely-used product requires assessing a wide-range of users, experiences, and an ecosystem of PC hardware and software. Our user research for Windows XP gave us a greater understanding of the user's selfperception of their abilities. We also uncovered three pivotal usability issues: awareness, discoverability, and learnability. To address these issues for Windows Vista, we iteratively researched the product while focusing on universal design. The impact of this research resulted in design changes to the following major accessibility areas: an enhanced entry-point, a recommendation process that maps user needs to relevant accessibility components, and enhanced features of Windows Speech Recognition.
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