Feature: Tools of Inspiration

Accessibility tools are not the most glamorous of playthings. More often than not, you make do with a toolbar across your browser; a set of guidelines, or, at best, heuristics; and, if you are lucky, a screen-reader. To the uninitiated, they appear highly technical and unwelcoming. Someone said to me recently it took working alongside a person with very little sight for a couple of hours to transform the meaning of the great wad of guidance she'd been handed about making websites accessible. Suddenly it seemed like an important venture, rather than a test of patience.

Given that many designers see accessibility as a technical chore, not an opportunity for creative inclusive design, it is a shame more do not have the chance to work directly with users for whom access might be an issue. However, most product testing is carried out with users of working age, recruited by market, not for the range of their characteristics. And not that many designers get to sit in on user testing anyway.

With this in mind, the UTOPIA project team, led by Alan Newell of Dundee University, decided to build tools of inspiration. If designers do not go to users, let the experience of the users come to them. UTOPIA (Usable Technology for Older People: Inclusive and Appropriate) is a Scottish Higher Education Funding Council funded project, involving the Universities of Dundee, Napier, Glasgow and Abertay Dundee, researching the relationship between older people and technology. Newell and his team were charged with convincing industry that it is important to consider older people when developing new products, and to educate them in how to do so.

Newell describes working in collaboration with an industrial consultancy firm developing a web portal for older people. 'It was only after the engineers had taken part in an evaluation study of one of their prototypes with older people that they realised the full impact of the challenges. This I called the "Road to Damascus" event. I wanted to try to reproduce it in a cost effective manner.'

During the UTOPIA project, the team became increasingly aware that the current methods used to convey this message were not up to the job.

Their solution has been to make video scenarios that capture the experience of a range of older people in dealing with technology. There is now a CD and a DVD version of three short tales, known as the "Utopia Trilogy". Each tale deals with a set of issues in a realistic way, played by actors, but drawn from the experiences of people interviewed and observed as part of the project. The first, for instance, deals with a couple's desire to hook up a web camera so that they can see pictures of their grandchildren. The woman leads, while her husband makes helpful suggestions from the chair. In the end they are defeated by the antiquity of their computer and the need for a USB port to plug the device into. It's a story that many would recognise and not exclusively as a preserve of older people. Nonetheless, the age of the system, the tentativeness of the owners accompanied by a certain naivety – the woman doesn't know that the monitor is not the computer as such – is not untypical of people in this age-group and make for particular problems. Two further stories on the disc deal with similarly human aspects of using mobile phones and email.

'It is designed to change the mind-sets of designers so that they become truly empathetic to the needs of older people, rather than simply follow guidelines, or just pay lip service to inclusive design,' says Newell.

A department of applied computing does not seem a likely incubator for video stories. But an earlier project on home monitoring systems at Dundee had used narrative videos successfully to facilitate discussions with older people on the requirements for such monitoring technology. And Newell's knowledge of theatre reassured him that this medium could be used to convey messages in very effective ways. Through links with the local Foxtrot Theatre Company, Newell has seen firsthand the power of theatre in professional training and in facilitating discussion on sensitive issues. 'It thus seemed that a version of this was a very appropriate way of communicating these messages to designers.' And a collaboration with Foxtrot seemed an appropriate way forward in executing the plan.

Maggie Morgan was drafted in as script writer. She founded Foxtrot in 1992, to concentrate on Forum Theatre (where the emphasis is upon participation and community consultation, rather than performance for entertainment alone). She brought with her experience from the previous video work at Dundee and a range of productions aimed at older people. Previous scenario work included a commission from Age Concern Scotland to tour "Breaking the Silence", a set of three interactive scenarios focussing on abuse of the elderly, playing to audiences of both professionals and older people.

Morgan stresses the value of thorough and accurate research with experts in the field so that scripted material rings true. 'If you get even small factual details wrong, the illusion of reality is shattered. I spoke to a number of the older volunteers involved in the Utopia project as well as the staff, read and viewed a great deal of material, visited one of their computer groups...

'There was a great deal of material to work from, with each Utopia team member working on different aspects of technology such as learning to work with computers, including use of the internet and email: playing computer games: use of mobile phones: using a computer based navigation aid. From all this information, the most important general principles and difficulties had to be distilled, then the different threads woven into the tapestry of three different stories.'

After a great deal of discussion, decisions were reached on the content of the scenarios and what they were to demonstrate. Morgan turned her attention to producing further drafts of the script for the Trilogy. Her priorities were structure, tight scripting and good characterisation. The process of dramatisation was also supported by the hiring of experienced professional actors: 'in order to mount a good performance in a short time and to achieve the "suspension of disbelief" required from the audience', she says.

'Budget restraints demanded that our locations were local, which was not a problem. The budget meant also that the three scenarios were shot in three days. This made the timetable very tight but we kept to it by myself and the film director planning meticulously beforehand and by using a slightly more theatrical style of filming, rather than a more complicated filmic style, which would have taken at least twice as long to shoot, let alone edit. Each day was a long one for the crew, though careful timetabling of the actors kept costs down. Also the weather was kind for the outdoor shots!'

Morgan says that a larger budget might have improved the final product. It is hard for the team to put a finger on the exact cost of the work because so much was handled in-house, but the amount was modest. 'Taking more time over the shoot would have produced a more artistic video, for example. As script writer, it would have been beneficial for the development of the script to have a mid-way session with an invited audience where the actors, using scripts, acted out what had been developed so far. Comments from the audience, researchers and older participants in the project, could have added to or sharpened up the scripts. In the end, however, we had to select the main points the video was trying to get over, in order to encourage discussion amongst designers, etc. Trying to achieve everything in some short scripts would not have worked.'

The dramatic form came with its own problems for an academic department, though. Anna Dickinson is one of the researchers that worked with Morgan on the collaboration. The process of translating ideas and experiences into a video was quite new to her.

'I found some of the process interesting. We tried to approach the development as an iterative, educational dialogue between us (the researchers) and the creative team. The idea was to pass on our experiences working with the user group and to give as wide a view as possible of the experiences that people have learning to use computers. Perhaps some of the aspects that we had felt were relevant became lost in the creative process because they lacked dramatic interest. One aspect which perhaps this was true of was the successful computer user. There are many older people who are extremely successful computer users and we wanted to show this when we initially considered the idea.'

The difference in priorities, language and ways of working is something that everyone involved in making the video acknowledges. Newell points to the initial communication difficulties between the researchers and the scriptwriter, while Morgan comments that it proved immensely useful that one member of the Utopia team was a filmmaker as well as an academic researcher, speaking both languages.

'The process itself - of a dramatist working with academic researchers - sort of paralleled the difficult process of technologists and designers trying to communicate with older people who were new to technology, and vice versa. Perspectives, expectations, past experience, an understanding of each other's values and, of course, language were different. It was a fascinating if sometimes frustrating process.'

And Newell, reflecting on the learning gained, concludes: 'Ensure that all the parties in the development are aware of the various agendas, and the tension between the artistic requirements of a rich and rewarding story and the technological requirements to convey particular important messages.'

He is now at the point of publicising both the Trilogy and the methodology, so discussion of the learning is germane. 'We've obtained good feedback on the effect of the Trilogy from both designers and students. This, however, is the first example of such a methodology – and some respondents commented that it was a bit slow in places. We thus need to refine the process so that the final outcome is "tighter", and covers a greater range of interface challenges presented by older people.'

As well as target audience, another group were consulted on the outcome too: 'I cared very much about the people we were representing by making it and I was very anxious that they didn't feel we had misrepresented them,' says Dickinson. 'Their reactions to the videos have been very positive, however.'

And showing it to a room full of designers, I found that it largely does what the team hopes. The audience was appreciative; commenting that it took a holistic approach to the problems associated with technology and had been framed in contexts of use, making it informative and approachable. Ironically, they were concerned that the issues presented affected a wider population and that showing them as the preserve of older people might marginalise them. They also felt that the scenarios present difficult problems for designers to solve. But that is the point really – that there is an awful lot to think about and that thinking about how much is a good start.

Maggie Morgan sums it up. For her, the exercise was quite personal: 'I am in my early sixties, and my introduction to computers in recent years reflects similar experiences to those shown in the video. Use of the word processor has transformed my regular day-to-day work. On the other hand, doing anything new or slightly different seems like going into a minefield. I still remember my great pride and sense of achievement when I first succeeded in buying something via the net.'

Making that fear, frustration and joy more widely available can only be good for design.

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