Table of Contents

VOLUME XIV.4 July + August 2007

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  • In this issue

    • In this issue

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      This issue presents the topic of HCI and the elderly; we thank and congratulate another outstanding volunteer guest editor, Jonathan Livingston, for putting together this selection of articles. The elderly are becoming more and more computer savvy, leading the way for the destruction of deep-rooted stereotypes of computer illiteracy.…

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  • Fresh: rant

    • HCI and the human condition

      Jonathan Arnowitz

      We've just returned from CHI2007. It's a huge event, with multiple parallel tracks, and clearly there is something for everyone in the offerings. In this, more than any previous conference, there was room for practitioner and other applied papers in HCI. On departing the research/theoretical ivory towers, one will…

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  • Fresh: ok/cancel

    • Aging technophiles

      Tom Chi, Kevin Cheng

      ©2007 ACM1072-5220/07/0700$5.00 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation…

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  • Fresh: ask Doctor Usability

    • New math

      Dr. Usability

      Dear Dr. Usability, I am having trouble getting access to users. I have been challenged to come up with an efficient design for the product, and after doing some initial user research, I have some good scenarios to work with. But I can't validate my designs because there are…

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  • Fresh: pushing the envelope

    • Who said “Usability is Free”?

      Fred Sampson

      To many of us, the best-known open source software (OSS) project is the Linux operating system, which has become wildly popular for being free and versatile. Linux also has a reputation for being challenging, at best, for nongeek users. Frankly, even a Linux distribution that claims to pay special…

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  • Forum: under development

    • User-centered design for development

      Indrani Medhi

      Over the past two years that I have spent designing user interfaces for illiterate people in underserved communities, the most important lesson that I learned was to unlearn certain preconceptions about user-centered design. Two years ago, fresh out of graduate school, I believed in meticulously following the design processes…

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  • Designing for seniors

    • ICT design for elders

      Jonathan Livingston

      I'm pleased to showcase recent developments in information and communication technology (ICT) design for aging users. Addressing elders' needs presents unique opportunities and challenges for design and user-experience professionals. Traditionally, we focus on innovative products aimed at youth and midcareer professionals. ICT products for elders are different. Instead of…

    • Technology and aging

      Susan Walker, Michael Sarfatti

      The late American feminist and activist Betty Friedan once said, 'Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength." We live in an information age that changes at a hectic pace, especially as we move into an always-on state of connectivity. As my parents got…

    • Mobile phone design for older persons

      Sri Kurniawan

      Just like computers and the Internet, mobile phones are becoming common personal items for older persons. In early 2006, 60 percent of people aged 65 to 74 years and 36 percent of people aged 75 years and over owned and used mobile phones in the UK [1]. Actually, older…

    • Speech recognition and alternative interfaces for older users

      Sara Basson, Peter Fairweather, Vicki Hanson

      Many were first seduced by the promise and potential of speech technology after observing HAL's conversations with Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Progress in the accuracy of speech recognition and the clarity of speech synthesis coaxed many to believe that tasks performed with technology—especially the computer—would be…

    • Ambient assisted-living research in carelab

      Boris Ruyter, Elly Pelgrim

      Demographic trends are signaling the overwhelming need for information and communication technology (ICT) based consumer health and wellness applications. One of the high potential growth areas is in elder care: According to the World Health Organization, the proportion of people age 60 and over worldwide is growing faster than…

    • The use of an intelligent prompting system for people with dementia

      Alex Mihailidis, Jennifer Boger, Marcelle Canido, Jesse Hoey

      Dementia impairs people's ability to perform routine activities: They cannot remember the proper sequence of steps or how to use the necessary tools. Strategies commonly used by caregivers involve continually providing reminders or cues. Family caregivers find assisting their loved ones to be particularly upsetting and embarrassing, as it…

    • Exploring the nuances of Murphy’s Law—-long-term deployments of pervasive technology into the homes of older adults

      Janna Kimel, Jay Lundell

      There is an increasing focus in industry and academia on developing technology to allow older people to remain in their homes for as long as possible [1, 6]. One approach involves "pervasive technology"—the deployment of various sensors, computers, and output devices embedded in the home environment to track behavior…

    • Neuroscience via computer

      Michael Merzenich

      I knew we had been successful when 80-year-old Grace Curran told us that her daily life had gotten easier and her self-confidence improved. "My memory is lots better," she says, "and I feel a little bit prouder of myself in different things." What made the difference was the Brain…

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  • Forum: timelines

    • HCI is in business—-focusing on organizational tasks and management

      Dov Te'eni

      As a subfield of the academic field of management information systems (MIS), human computer interaction has traditionally been concerned with the process and outcomes of users interacting with computers to accomplish organizational tasks. The principal factors are the computer, the task, and—most important—the physical, cognitive, and affective aspects of…

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  • People: the way I see it

    • The next UI breakthrough, part 2

      Donald Norman

      In my previous column I discussed the reemergence of command line language. Once these were the ways we used our operating systems and applications. Now they are reemerging within search engines. They are hidden and not easy to learn about, but I expect them to grow in power and,…

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  • People: fast forward

    • Fun! fun! fun! in the user experience we just wanna have fun…don’t we?

      Aaron Marcus

      A funny thing happened to me on the way to writing this column. I began to ask myself, what exactly constitutes fun in the user experience of products and services? Naturally, games and play come to mind. The topic is explored and demonstrated in depth at major game conferences…

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  • People: the well-tempered practitioner

    • Ethical dilemmas redux

      Chauncey Wilson

      At the CHI 2001 conference, I was on a panel with Rolf Molich, Brenda Laurel, Whitney Quesenbery, and Carolyn Snyder [5] that discussed ethical dilemmas in HCI. I think that HCI practitioners face ethical issues all the time, but ethics is a bit like sex or religion—people are uncomfortable…

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  • Books
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  • Event planner

    • Event planner

      interactions Staff

      July 9-12 International Conference on High Performance Computing, Networking, and Communication Systems Orlando, FL www.promoteresearch.org July 11 IEEE International Workshop on e-Activity Melbourne, Australia www.iwea.net July 12-13 CollabTech 2007 Third Annual Conference on Collaboration technologies Seoul, South Korea www.collabtech.org July 15-22 IMAI 2007 Fifth International Conference…

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  • Rave

    • Enter the chief design officer!

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      CHI2007 was one of the best CHI conferences ever, particularly for design researchers and practitioners. Kudos are due to the conference chairs, Mary Beth Rosson and David Gilmore, for promoting the design community, and to the design community chairs, Jon Kolko (Savannah College of Art and Design) and Bill…

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  • Postcards from the future

    • Google graves

      Atticus Wolrab

      ©2007 ACM1072-5220/07/0700$5.00 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation…

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