Creating senior-oriented living in virtual reality
Together with partners from all over Europe, User Interface Design GmbH (UID) develops a new software system for the design of senior-oriented living environments. By means of virtual reality, planners and future residents will be able to experience technological novelties of living environments before their implementation. The European Union funds this research project which is supposed to allow people an independent life to old age.
The concept of "Ambient Assisted Living" represents a growing future market, focussing on intelligent assistant systems that support elderly people or people in need to live an independent life in their familiar environment despite limitations. These assistant systems are able to monitor the resident's health via telemonitoring, register movements via floor sensors and adjust the lighting, temperature and ventilation conditions to the resident's behaviour.
The objective: The development of a 3D simulation platform
The European Union launched the research project VAALID ("Accessibility and Usability Validation Framework for Ambient Assisted Living Interaction Design process") to be able to test and improve these auxiliary means before their production in future. The objective of this project is to develop a simulation platform including a 3D environment. Apart from UID, six additional partners from science and industry participate in this research project such as Siemens Healthcare Spain and Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research.
The usability test of the future
"It is conceivable to simulate the apartments of seniors in a 3D environment. The test respondents will then be able to test new technologies and devices in their familiar environment. This is a completely new kind of usability testing", says Johannes Schäfer, manager of this project at UID.
Focus groups in virtual reality
Specialized in usability, UID is in charge of the user-centred design of the new system. The requirements and requests of the seniors on the test environment were collected by UID by means of focus groups: The target group, between 55 and 90 years old, was interviewed directly in a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, a room for 3D projection of virtual reality, to document the requirements of the future users on the system.
2010: Transition to practice
In narrative scenarios displaying the interaction and with a specification, UID is currently developing the user interface concept of the 3D environment. During the project term, the usability engineers will review the interaction concept and the progress by means of usability tests. Additionally, UID designs an application for the authors to model a virtual environment. Together with the project partners, UID intends to finalize the project in 2010. The next step will then be the transition of the system to practice.
The background
To ensure the success of a product or a service, the future users must be in the focus of the development, with their tasks, objectives, and requests being essential for the design. For more than ten years, User Interface Design GmbH (UID) has developed interactive products according to the so-called user-centred design process. Since 1999, the standard DIN EN ISO 13407 has described this procedure.
Besides the competencies of Usability, Software and Design, Research and Innovation represent a major part of the work at UID. The company participates in international research projects on a regular basis, offering its customers innovative solutions in human-machine interaction. Last, the instrument AttrakDiff™ was created to measure and compare the attractiveness of interactive products (www.attrakdiff.de).
The EU funds the VAALID research project within the 7th European Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under the project number 224309.
Links for further information
The target group: people between 55 and 90 years