Telematics support for telematics designers

1. Summary

Designers of telematic services and devices need on line information about user needs and preferences, design guidelines and tools in order to develop good products. They have also to find the place where they can get the information or help they need. The INCLUDE (http://www.stakes.fi/include) project gives this information. Together with the COST219 (http://www.stakes.fi/cost219) action it also provides information about how telecommunications services and devices should be designed in order to meet the universal services issues required by the United Nations "Standard rules on equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities" and the European Union directive on "Open Network Provision".

2. Introduction

Why should a researcher take disabled and elderly peoples requirements and preferences into account?

Is it because of the success story of the Converse telephone or the low floor buss, both originally developed with disabled people and elderly in mind and now becoming well selling solutions for all? Or is it because a lot of products that have been developed for the non-disabled have failed? Or is it because of the 20% of the market that the elderly and disabled people group represent?

Whatever the correct answer would be, the Council decision on the Telematics Application Program enforces it by stating that "The RTD work carried out in the projects will have to anticipate as fully as possible the users requirements of handicapped and elderly people. To this end , RTD work will need to ensure that the applications developed can be upgraded so as to address, in the most cost-effective way, the needs of these categories of users" This paper show how to meet the Council decision.

3. Users requirement studies

The projects concerned have tried to assess the users requirement in different ways. The normal procedure has been that each project concerned has a workpackage dealing with user needs, and some partners with knowledge or some knowledge about the issues write a report. The same partners can participate in many project which results in a set of reports dealing with the issues. Some of the reports are not public and can not directly be used by other projects.

4. How can we easily take users into account in Design

It was very early noted that what is needed in the long run is a common pool of expertise with the task to:

- Collect user requirement and design information, Collate information from projects

- Disseminate the information providing also Web services and Help desk services.

INCLUDE was therefore set up with the goal of helping Telematics projects achieve improved accessibility to new products and services. Or as it is stated in the objective: to provide the necessary support for the Telematics Applications programme projects and other relevant actors in ensuring that telematic equipment and services are designed and implemented in ways that are accessible to disabled and older people

In order to achieve the objectives INCLUDE promotes involvement of European and local organisations of people with disabilities and older people in the development of new telematic services and devices. The European Disability Forum is a very important partner in this work.

4.1 Dissemination of information

INCLUDE has disseminated information about services provided, issues concerning disability and telecommunications, design for all, guidelines, standardisation, legislation and about policy issues just to give some examples. The INCLUDE newsletters, pamphlets and leaflets have been mailed to projects, to people in the field and distributed in various meetings and conferences.

4.2 Web services

INCLUDE provides a help desk and an information service about disability and old age, the needs of different groups of disabled people, existing solutions for design for all, market aspects, cost/benefits, standards and legislation just to mention a few issues at:
http://www.stakes.fi/include

The server has links to national INCLUDE servers and to outside sources of information including also issues like assistive devices, tools for achieving Design for All and ongoing research. Users can find answers to specific questions by contacting INCLUDE Help Desk, using the INCLUDE search engine, contacting INCLUDE experts or just by navigating through the INCLUDE Web site (text map, picture map) where there are headlines like:

Why should Disabled and Elderly users be included?

What are the facts regarding disability and ageing?

How to take into account user needs in design?

What information is available on particular applications?

Publications, Web servers

4.3 Help services

The help desk supports the Telematics projects by analysing their plans, work and achievements in respect of the needs of older people and people with disabilities

It also includes gives expert advice and on line Help Services and contacts to user forums

The INCLUDE project analyses the information that is available and creates links to high quality relevant information in co-operation with INCLUDE. An important source is the WWW pages created by the other Telematics projects, many of them created in co-operation with INCLUDE.

5. Promise

The Promise (ISPO, Information Society Project Office of the European Commission, Project No. 20700) project "Promoting an Information Society for Everyone: Dissemination and Demonstration of Best Practice in Information Society Applications for Older People and People with Disabilities in Europe" has collected examples of how new services and devices has been designed so as to be accessible and useful also to disabled people and elderly.

The findings have been published as a resource book on good design which is also made available in the Web at
http://www.stakes.fi/promise

6. COST219 bis, Telecommunication: Access for disabled people and elderly

An other project in this field is COST 219 bis. Signatories of COST 219 bis(15.2 98) are: Australia(GSA), Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States(TRACE).

The main objective is to increase the availability of telecommunication services and equipment designed so as to be accessible also to elderly people and people with disabilities or, alternatively, adaptable for that purpose when required. In cases where this can not be achieved, the Action will aim at establishing appropriate supplementary services and equipment.

Taking continuously into account the "Design for All" concept in telecommunications and teleinformatics, the objectives of the Action can be specified in operational terms as follows.:

Collect, assess and process knowledge,

Disseminate knowledge, i.e.:

To influence standardisation, regulation and legislation to take into account present and future needs of elderly people and people with disabilities.

To promote end user involvement

To initiate and perform feasibility studies, research preparation and technology evaluation

An example of the COST219 bis results is the report on Universal services issues, which shows how telecommunications services  providers should take the Open Network Provision directive into account in designing their services.

http://www.stakes.fi/cost219

7. Conclusions and recommendations

Projects starting should consult the support actions in order to find out what can already be offered to new projects. INCLUDE (http://www.stakes.fi/include) and COST219 bis (http://www.stakes.fi/cost219)gives information about how to take elderly people and people with disabilities into account when designing new telematic devices, terminals and services. Promise (http://www.stakes.fi/promise) presents examples of good practice.

Projects supported by public funding like the Telematics Application Program projects should make their user needs studies (or part of these) public and make them available on the Web. INCLUDE will then link to those parts that are of high quality and useful for other designers.

Literature:

Telecommunications for All, (1995) editor Patrick Roe, ECSC-EC-EAEC, Brussels*Luxemburg, CD-90-95-712-EN-C, 1995