The big problem with information technology is that
it tries so hard to be rational. By contrast, humans are happy
to be rational only part of the time. Most other times (apart
from the fact that they sleep so much) people operate in very
different modes: of daydreaming and pondering; of joy and
melancholy; of hope and of despair – apart from all the
other subliminal states of which, most of the time, we are
not even aware. Now, all of these I would call the non-rational
[...] Because all information technology systems have started
out in life with a big ration of the rational, the logical
conclusion seems to be that, indeed, we should work towards
a new and perfect world – a technocracy directed by the
empty ethos of machines. Projects under the i3 [Intelligent
Information Interfaces] research initiative – and in
particular Presence – rejected this purely positivistic
absurdity, that along with the development of the computer,
has been furiously promulgated over the last 50 years. However,
rather than taking a 'neo-Luddite' stance, i3 aspired to start
from human-centred notions to see how new technology could
be invented and interwoven in that context. It asked for ways
of supporting (and not replacing) everyday people doing everyday
things: of supporting creativity and imagination, of friendship
and community, having a chat, of ...
Jakub Wejchert, Future and Emerging Technologies Unit, European
Commission.
Background
The primary goal of the Presence project was to develop new
ways for ordinary people – and especially older people
– to interact with computers and communications. For
older people, technology is often a means – not an end
in itself. It is a means, in particular, to better communications,
which can reduce their dependency on welfare services. This
is the thinking behind Presence. The project connected a wide
range of organisations and was based on three test sites that
have the common objective of supporting the activities and
well-being of older people belonging to local communities.
The sites provided a complementary range of experiences, encompassing
three difference countries (Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands);
a range of technologies, from low- to high- tech, to cutting
edge; and three basic domains: assistance, communications,
and accessing mobility.
This multi-party research project developed interfaces and
scenarios about communications infrastructure. The interfaces
which were developed during the project were designed to have
the following qualities: be pleasureable devices, considering
the aesthetics of the interaction as a major element to be
developed in tandem with functionality; incorporate multi-modal
devices to allow parallel channels for use by people of different
abilities; incorporate input and output devices "hidden"
in the environment of public spaces or the home. An important
outcome of the project were new methodologies for the design
of information technology products and services for older
people, and for social actors with different needs in everyday
life.
What we did
The processes of this research project ranged from design-led
user studies ('Cultural Probes') which probed older people’s
lives and attitudes, to conceptual
proposals for innovative services and systems, to design
experiments and tests
of working prototypes in the communities themselves.
Design-led user studies ('Cultural Probes')
The very different characters of the three sites struck
us immediately during the brief visits we made at the beginning
of the project. Their physical settings, cultures, and the
personalities of the older people combined to give each place
its own identity, impossible to confuse with the others. Given
this, pursuing generic designs that would be relevant for
all three sites seemed inconceivable to us, as they would
inevitably undervalue the particular situation in any one.
Instead, it seemed clear that our designs should respond to
each community separately. It was obvious, however, that short
visits would not allow us to understand the different communities
in depth. We had neither time nor budget to make longer stays,
and traditional methods, such as questionnaire studies or
focus groups, seemed too impersonal to give us the empathic
understanding we required. The Cultural Probes grew out of
our feeling that we had to explore new methods in order to
approach the sites.
Conceptual proposals
The second main phase of the project involved generating a
wide range of proposals for each of the three sites. Using
the returned items from the Cultural Probes, as well as photographs,
anecdotes, and souvenirs from our visits, we imagined a wide
variety of systems that we might develop and recorded our
ideas for discussion with our partners and the groups of older
people at each of the sites.
We made a structured workbook, using a variety of imagery
to create fragmented narratives for the systems we were proposing,
while using descriptive text to provide a framework and organisation
for the ideas. These workbooks were presented to the older
people in each of the three sites during visits, to encourage
them to imagine the ideas and to elicit their feedback and
ideas.
Discussing the workbook with the older people and our partners
allowed us to crystallise the design proposals for each site.
What had started as loose constellations of ideas cohered
as integrated systems, the result of having been inhabited
by our imaginations for so long. We went on to create an interactive
multimedia presentation of our design proposals where separate
screens described each community to set the context for our
proposals, presented animated diagrams of the systems we suggested,
and offered a ‘catalogue of parts’ indicating the
kinds of physical artefacts that might comprise the systems.
Design experiments
At this stage we tested approximate versions of the systems
in the three sites. We were not primarily concerned with technical
practicalities at this stage, as we were satisfied that a
number of possible routes existed to realise each of the proposals.
Instead, we focused on using appropriate, often low-tech,
means to simulate and test the experiences the proposals would
engender – their aesthetics, their social effects, and
their cultural implications – with the older people in
the three communities. Nonetheless, in the course of the experiments
it became clear that both technical concerns and the intellectual
challenge offered by the systems would play a large role in
deciding which to take forward.
Tests of working prototypes
Performing tests of the proposals in Oslo, Peccioli, and the
Bijlmer took a surprising amount of time, despite the technological
simplicity of the experimental situations we created. Clearly,
implementing more technically sophisticated prototypes of
all three systems would be impossible. We settled with little
difficulty on developing and testing the system we had designed
for the Bijlmer in Amsterdam. In part, this was because our
experiment had worked best there, with few obvious technical
or conceptual problems and an enthusiastic response from the
local inhabitants. More than this, however, we were intrigued
by the complexity of this area and wanted to explore further
the ideas it had inspired.
Project team
Tony Dunne, Bill Gaver, Ben Hooker, Shona Kitchen and Brendan
Walker at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with Domus
Academy (Milan), Helen Hamlyn Research Centre (London), Human
Factor Solutions (Oslo), Innovative Devices and Engineering
for Automation (Pisa), Netherlands Design Institute (Amsterdam),
Scuola Superiore S ’Anna (Pisa) and Telenor (Oslo).
Other information and links
http://www.presenceweb.i3net.org/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1874175322/
qid=1065812160/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/202-9333660-3666264
http://www.rca.ac.uk/pages/showcase/interaction_design_481.html
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