Involving domain experts in assistive technology research

Abstract

Teams engaging in assistive technology research should include expertise in the domain of disability itself, in addition to other areas of expertise that are more typical in human-computer interaction (HCI) research, such as computer science and psychology. However, unexpected problems can arise when HCI researchers do not adequately plan the involvement of domain experts in a research project. Although many research teams have included domain experts when designing assistive technologies, there has been little work published on how to best involve these experts in the research process. This paper is a first step towards filling that void. Based on the authors' own experiences involving domain experts in research, as well as those documented in the literature, five types of domain experts and three broad roles that domain experts can play are identified, and five guidelines for their involvement are presented. This analysis will be useful to anyone in the assistive technology and universal accessibility communities, especially those who are in the early stages of conducting research in this area. It is intended to lay the foundation of best practices for involving domain experts in assistive technology research.

A Review of Contemporary Work on the Ethics of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies for People with Dementia

“…These are presented here from the point of view of the stakeholders involved: the PwD, formal and informal care-givers (nurses, family proxies), researchers and clinicians, (software/hardware) engineers, designers, and technicians. These stakeholders involved in our ethical analysis had been previously defined by various authors (Allen et al, 2008;Duquenoy and Whitehouse, 2006;Duquenoy, 2004;Hofmann, 2012;R. Sparrow and L. Sparrow, 2006;Sponselee et al, 2008;van Hoof et al, 2011).…”

“…During the clinical trials, an important aspect for medical researchers is the meaningfulness of the data gathered, both from a scientific and a medical point of view, in order to be able to translate it into valid knowledge (Allen et al, 2008;Conley et al, 2008;Cook et al, 2009;Darwish and Hassanien, 2011;Kang et al, 2010;Kaye, 2010;Noury et al, 2011;Romdhane et al, 2012;Viswanathan et al, 2012;Wherton and Monk, 2008). The accuracy and reliability of such data has to be prioritised, according to their relevance, importance and urgency (Darwish and Hassanien, 2011;Viswanathan et al, 2012).…”

“…The literature warns about mismatched expectations of engineers/researchers and actual users of a system (Allen et al, 2008). For example, video-telephony is often understood as enhancing the social inclusion of a user but according to van Hoof's empirical study, it did not always reduce feelings of loneliness or improve the social contacts of the users (van Hoof et al, 2011).…”

“…The involvement of (vulnerable) users in the design process can be maintained by means such as role-playing (Picking et al, 2012), drama (Sponselee et al, 2008) or acted performance (Newell et al, 2011), and interviews (Maier and Kempter, 2009). The feedback from users for design is crucial because every target user is a domain expert (Allen et al, 2008). Borenstein and Pearson (2010), quoting Oosterlaken, emphasises that the details of design are morally significant.…”

“…, Gaul and Ziefle (2009) Allen et al (2008), Aarts et al (2007), Borenstein and Pearson (2010), Burleson et al (2012), Duquenoy (2004), Francis et al (2009), Hersh et al (2003, Kosta, Pitkanen, et al (2008), Kosta, Pitkänen, et al (2010), Lorenzen-Huber et al …”