Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The demographic revolution, rapid aging in Europe has raised the creation of innovation market as one of the most important elements in the European strategy. During 2006 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland carried out a campaign called the Idea Movement of Aging Citizens, where mobile service ideas were collected from aging citizens for open use. The ground for the campaign was the fact that the aging persons are the best experts of their own needs and should thus have more say in the development of new mobile services. Around 4300 ideas were collected in 13 innovation workshops in Finland. About 750 aging citizens participated in these workshops. This paper presents experiences and lessons-learnt of using innovation workshops as a method for activating aging people to work as idea generators for mobile services.

Access to e-Government services, such as welfare, housing and financial assistance is typically achieved through accessing, completing and submitting paper-based forms. Current UK e-Government strategies indicate that such service access forms will be made available online. With the aging population considered as a primary user of these services this paper promotes the need to establish older adults’ online form design requirements. Building on previous research [see 8], the current investigation validates and extends previous online form design requirements for an aging user group. The paper opens with an overview of current UK e-Government initiatives and promotes the investigation of older adults’ online form design requirements, not only to assist this vulnerable user group with independent living but also to support social inclusion.

Nowadays online conference management systems are an essential tool for the organization of a conference. However, most such systems do not provide support for accessibility by disabled users. This paper discusses the design and development of a platform supporting the development of accessible conference management systems, focusing on accessibility integration through the use of an iterative approach. Accessibility issues as they ere raised during the evaluation procedure are also discussed.

Original methodology of service science, that combines three methods (obtaining service data using ergonomics methods, analyzing service data using statistical methods, improving service using information technology) was constructed. Service science approach was implemented for interactions with customers such as daily life observation, shopping behavior observation, and talk analysis, and for employee’s nonroutine tasks, such as gas pipe construction work observation. The service science methodology improves customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction by improving productivity and safety of the work.

We introduce VoiceBlog, a blog reading browser based on the concept of universal design. Existing screen reading software used by blind people for PC access fails to support rapid understanding of the original blog structure and contents. VoiceBlog has a cascading user interface, hierarchically structured, and can well parse strictly-structured Web content such as blogs. It uses an audio user interface rule, which simplifies the comprehension of contents and menus (arrangement of contents based on construction, simplification, and navigation) to allow blind and weak-eyed people to comfortably access blogs. Blind people can use the keyboard to access all functions. The arrangement and design of icons, colors and correspondence to hi-contrast functions can be customized for the weak-eyed and color blind. Four blind and four weak-eyed people participated in trials of VoiceBlog. The results showed that it allows the blind to access blog contents easily because keyboard manipulations are similar to usual reading browsers and screen readers. The shapes and color of the icons are easy to recognize for weak-eyed people.

“In-Situ Ergonomics” which extended the direct observation method was discussed. It is the method of using a sensor for data collection. By observing all the situations in which a user works for a long period of time, this method can be used in order to improve service. As an example, the use situation of the electric pot with a communication function was analyzed. Various users’ use situation over one electric pot was clarified. And the improvement proposal of service was shown.

Medical readiness has become a critical concern world wide. Threats across diverse operation environments, coupled with critical voids in both medical management and medical skills has made the development of new training and management tools and operational assessment methods for first-responders a high priority across global communities. That first response role incorporates a broad array of individuals providing field-based emergency medical services. As recently observed during and after the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina disaster in the United States, critical technological tools and training resources were not available to ensure that the involved first responders had pertinent information available to them to properly do their jobs. The deficiencies must be rectified in order to insure rapid response to natural and man made disasters. Tools that distribute knowledge to aid a range of first responders in evaluating a medical situation, guide them in the uniform collection and reporting of critical information and provide telemedicine clinical reach back to medical experts are essential components of today’s medical preparedness. The Distributive Medical Curricula Architecture (DMCA) is designed to provide access to “just-in-time” training and streamline assessment and management of remote medical situations across military and civilian environments nationally and internationally.

Service business was classified into three categories. A design framework of user interface, especially screen design for the three categories of service was constructed roughly from viewpoint of theory of regulatory focus, transactional analysis (TA) and psychological impression. According to the three categories, three examples of screen design were designed roughly.

In this research, Google Website was taken as a Web prototype to get modified. Specialized Search Engine for the Blind (SSEB) was constructed with an accessible interface and some improved functions (i.e., searching assistance functions, user-centered functions, and specialized design for the blind). An experiment was conducted to verify the effect of SSEB. From experimental results, it’s significant that users attained better performance in SSEB than in Google. Users also showed higher satisfaction with SSEB.This research proves that the consideration for designing an accessible website for the blind users is very important. It is expected that the users group of SSEB can be expanded to all visual-impaired people in the future. So that all people can keep pace with the changing World Wide Web, and make good use of all the Internet resources without disabilities and limitations.

Even with the introduction of computer technology, paper-based artifacts remain ubiquitous in hospital settings. The need to manually transfer and update information from the physical to the digital realm is a common practice among hospital staff, which, although usually well managed, at times becomes a source for errors and inconsistencies. This paper presents an augmented patient chart system that preserves the use of paper and allows capturing information directly to the system through the use of a digital pen. An evaluation of the system with 22 volunteers indicates a significant reduction in the number of errors while reading information, a significant increment on the accuracy while annotating data, as well as a trend towards less time spent while annotating data on the digital paper. Based on our results, we argue that the design preserves the advantages associated with paper while increasing the availability of information and its trustworthiness.