TEC154 2010S, Class 26: Disability and Technology (Assistive Technologies) Overview: * Background. * Basics. * Beyond. Admin: * Friday's class meets in the Faulconer gallery. Please be there and be on time. * Reading for Friday: The catalog for the show. * Distributed in class today. * Just ONE question. * For obvious reasons, there is no penalty for late (or missing) questions on today's reading. * I've had a request for information on the better questions. I've been marking them on the questions pages. * Story about subjectivity in grading: AP Calculus. * EC for the Deibel talk today at 4:15 in JRC 101. * EC for Thursday's convo. * EC for the Thursday afternoon Clickers talk at 4:30 in SCI 3821. * EC for any of the GWS events this weekend. * EC for Drag Show * No EC, but go anyway, for Monday's "Campus Planning" Presentation (Blame J if you showed up yesterday.) * We're going to mix things up a bit today. * I'll lead some early parts of class. * I'll let Ms. Deibel lead the rest (or we'll try a free-for-all). Background: Let's look a bit at the source. * Why might we treat this as authoritative? * Who is the author? * What do we know about the venue? * What do characteristics about the paper tell us about the paper? Basics * What is the thesis of this paper? Although lots of assistive technologies are placed with those who need them, they are not adopted to their fullest. * There are aspects they look at in choosing to adopt a technology. * Portability: Can it be carried with you * Usefulness: Will this allow my children to become independent and socially accepted? * A group process: Multiple people influence the choice (not just those who use it or support it) * Parents: Who want "the best" technology for their children * Teachers: Who want convenient technology * Schools/Insurers: Who want cheapest most reusable technology * External agencies (insurance companies) * "Experts" who provide advice * There are aspects that they hope for in future technologies. * Simplicity * Of installing (by caregiver) * Of use (by user) * Of maintainence (by caregiver) * Evolution: Can become more powerful once the user gets used to * Functionality * Easy to use at first * Cheap: Easy to replace if it gets broken * Why do experts recommend stuff that doesn't necessarily do the job? * They serve multiple masters. * Commissions * Funding only gets provided for specialized devices, not for general technologies * NYT article last fall: Insurance company would provide laptop with speech functionality, but only if the other capabilities of the laptop were turned off. * Experts stuck: "I know this is not the best, but this is what we can get money for." * If Sam had bothered to read Dawe's and Deibel's other papers, he'd know that the assessment of many of these technologies is done in an artificial situation (the lab) rather than in the real world. * So the data that the experts rely upon is not data that tells about actual use. * Maintainence is a key issue, but not obvious in trials. * Dawe's dissertation was on software that could go on most cell phones and provide many of these features. Beyond We'll consider aspects you think are particularly interesting. A few questions that caught my eye follow. * What do we know about the normal adoption rate of technologies? Is 35% failure to adopt high, low, average * It's a "good question", but misplaced. * Adoption rates depend a lot upon the audience * E.g., cell phone use of farmers vs. cell phone use of businesscritters * Very different adoption processes. For AT, there's been a long, careful process in which the technology is chosen for the individual, so you want the acceptance rate to be VERY VERY high. * You've just used a lot of resources in selecting the technology. * Avoid feelings of "learned helplessness" ("this technology doesn't help me; I must be beyond help") * Note that the 35% varies widely between technology (8% to 80%) * What is the most abandoned assistive technology? Hearing aids. They increase volume. They don't help filter the too many sounds that you need to process. "What I used to hear" doesn't usually match "What I hear with the hearing aid". * Least abandoned: Wheelchairs. * Note: The analysis does look at "no longer need". * How can we distinguish between what teachers/parents want and what the users of these devices want? Shouldn't we focus more on the latter? * Would it be appropriate to apply the methodologies of this paper to other technologies? If so, which technologies are more or less amenable to this approach? * A lot of "virtual" technology (e.g., software) meets the goals of starting simple and getting more sophisiticated. Can non-virtual technology do the same as easily? * Has this paper influenced any designs? * Research in the LifeLong Learning and Design lab * Dawe's work gets cited widely in CHI and Assistive Technology Live questions from the class * What's the status of speech writers, like Dragon * Incredibly high abandonment rate because of difficulty of training * Kate's recent study: Software trained while user had slight cold and then suddenly stopped working well. * Do doctors provide information on hearing aids before recommending them? * It's important because the prices on hearing aids is high * Abandoned often because of moderate hearing loss, then used again after major hearing loss. * Children tend to abandon them and then use them again a bit later in life, but in this case it's partially an appearance thing. * What effect does age have on adoption of technology? (E.g., does it matter that these children were mostly in late teens?) * Not many studies that look at these differences. * Dawe probably focused on this age group because the majority of studies look at pre-teen years (so she could make a new contribution) * Amazingly, even the elderly fail to use assistive technologies (walkers, canes, etc.) that would help them. Final thought: * "Disabilities affect us all. If you care about society and technology, you'll think about the diversity of ability that occurs in all of us."