UD2014

The Many Generations Community House is my Master’s thesis project in architecture that I’m doing for Oulu School of Architecture in the University of Oulu in collaboration with Aalto University. The thesis work is related to the Lauttasaari Service Network research project of Aalto University and City of Helsinki. The thesis is scheduled to be finished during the spring of 2014. The Many Generations Community House is a design project consisting of a Community house and accessible and affordable housing for all age groups and life circumstances. Although all the apartments are to be made accessible and the focus on the services of the Community house is in the elderly, the main idea is to bring all the age groups together and see what they have to give to each other in the community of one block. The Community house provides activities and services to the whole area of Lauttasaari and its is open to all the residents. It serves as a Day Care for the elderly but it might also be a meeting place for the stay home mums and a starting place for the unemployed to enter the working life. My thesis is to design the framework but it is the residents who would build and shape up the community.

This paper presents the design and development of an interactive interface for users of Snoezelen environments. The goal with this project is to interact the users to explore their own senses by their own, and in some way, make them realize that they’ll get a response by the environment from their actions. By interacting with the interface, the user will get a response through the sight, hearing and touch. The main attraction is the element of surprise when the user, when approaching the interface, suddenly feels a strong gust of wind. To attract the user to the element of surprise, the interface needs something to invite the user to explore. To make this possible, it is important to implement the interface’s response in an attractive way. In this case, most of the users got an impaired vision, so they will respond more to sound than light, and this was the toughest part since sound aesthetics are different for each individual. Some of the users have poorer vision than others, so light response had to be as bright and intense as possible.

Providing the natural mapping between multi-touch gestures and digital content manipulations is an important factor of friendly user interfaces. Although, in the literature, there are some guidelines available for 2D digital content, the guideline for the manipulation of 3D contents is yet to be developed. In this research, two sets of gestures were developed for experiments. For comparative studies of age differences, 30 participants, including adults and children, were invited to carry out three tasks relevant to rotating the digital model of a green turtle to explore its features. The results showed that simpler gestures could facilitate the mapping between 2D control movements and 3D content displays, especially for children without intrinsic mental models of virtual contents manipulation. Although participants tended to visually observe the feedback angle of the contour and use the head of green turtle as a manipulation reference, it may not be easy to identify and manipulate the 3D object without a clear convex shape or image. In addition, offering a robust mechanism for gesture inputs is necessary for universal control of such a system. While manipulation, providing a synchronized mapping instruction for three axes rotation on screens is a useful 3D objects rotation solution for touch-screen design.

The World Health Organization and the World Bank report that nearly 1 out of 7 of the worlds population has some form of disability. Creating products and services that don’t include alternate interaction models is a failure on a global scale. Designers and engineers are the middlemen between disability and accessibility, and it’s our duty to help break interface barriers. This interactive presentation will explore examples and methods for understanding and practicing accessible design.

Human diversity along with regional and cultural layers present immense challenges for Indian transportation systems. An equally diverse transit system continues to be an identity of mobility for masses in India since ages. Universal Design (UD) strategies with growing needs and awareness have started percolating in the Indian transport networks catalyzing inclusion as a process. This paper briefly discusses the advancing state of UD approach in Indian transportation systems. Through a stage wise evolution from policy framework to accessibility codes and guidelines and finally the implementation in the form of Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) like Delhi Metro and Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS) in Ahmedabad, it makes an important highlight for nations with similar contexts to project UD strategies in their transportation systems.

The aim of this paper was to examine how useable and inclusive the city is from the perspective of older bicyclists. Methods used were quantitative questionnaires and qualitative focus group interviews. Participants were people aged 65 years or older. The results showed that respondents were fairly satisfied with the transport infrastructure design. However, other road users seemed to complicate cycling, e.g. as communication and interaction between other road users was perceived as difficult and poor.

Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA) in the United Arab Emirates is seeking to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities. Therefore, the Department of Welfare and Rehabilitation of Persons with Disability (DWRPD) cooperated with many parties such as the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai (RTA), Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and Dubai Airport Authority to provide the accessibility for persons with disabilities and the elderly. Today the Dubai Metro, which began work in the 9/9/2009 very suitable for the use of persons with disabilities and the elderly. Including wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches users, and is suitable for people with visual impairment or hearing disability. The new Dubai airport (terminal 3) has become very Accessible for persons with disabilities and elderly enable them to travel easily. Shopping malls, hotels and some public parks are also suitable for use by persons with disabilities and the elderly.

Universal design is a democratic question incorporated in legislations, standards and guidelines. But universal design is also a tool for walkable and attractive pedestrian areas where active and sustainable modes of transport is prioritized. This paper present a project called “Good examples of universal design” that promotes transport facilities that is built with universal design, that emphasizes universal design as one of any aspects that’s need to be fulfilled to make the transport system attractive and accessible.

We show insights from a user-centered design process for a serious game together with jobless, young adults. The involvement allows a deep understanding of the users as well as detailed requirements regarding the design of a serious game for working life integration. To collect requirements, identify the context of use and create designs for such a game, several methods like focus group, and paper prototyping were used. Participants also benefit by working on a clear goal and in a structured daily routine together with other young adults. Compared to conventional training-methods the project has a lower rate of drop-outs and participants were motivated to create game content and design game components.

A design that adheres to all users’ needs, can help us generate universally designed products. While nothing is as thorough as active co-design with end users, other less resource intensive approaches are needed as well. We investigate the concept of lead users as a source for ideas on universal design. Specifically we investigate how elderly i.e. people over the age of 65, can act as lead users while designing for the general population. The main idea behind this is that, the elderly may be able to articulate more needs when compared to the general population and the outcome attained by addressing these needs would be preferred by all. We propose a combination of product function and human activity based approach. The elderly survey participants are asked to indicate tasks which they have difficulty completing and universal design rules are derived using those results. We then empirically test the rules by designing set of products based on those rules. The products are then evaluated by both the general population and the elderly. We find that, the products designed by fixing elderly as lead users are either preferred over or equally to the existing products also by the general population.