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| Contractual Date of Delivery to the EC: | 26th February 2004 (update) |
|---|---|
| Actual Date of Delivery to the EC: | 26th February 2004 |
| Editor: | Jenny Darzentas (AEGEAN) |
| Contributor(s): | Jenny Darzentas (AEGEAN), Colette Nicolle (LU/RSEHF), Rafael Romero (UVEG), Jan Engelen, Christophe Strobbe (KULRD), Carlos A. Velasco (FIT), Frédéric Degouzon (L'Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique), Ger Craddock (CRC), Gerhard Weber, Kurt Weimann (MMC), Helen Petrie (City University) |
| Workpackage: | 3 |
| Estimated person months: | |
| Security: | Public |
| Nature: | Report |
| Version: | G |
| Total number of pages: | 55 (PDF version) |
This deliverable presents state of the art in curriculum development work, and compares IDCnet to it. Next it discusses the methodology followed to identify key knowledge and skill sets for Design for All.
The categories of knowledge thus identified are organised into a taxonomy with examples given for each category and subcategory along with a set of learning outcomes. The purpose of the taxonomy is to structure the knowledge.
As this deliverable was a 'living' document, and as further activities have taken place since this deliverable was first submitted, this version includes a substantially expanded chapter 5, incorporating comments from: the project review process; the new members of IDCnet; the second IDCnet workshop; as well as comments received from colleagues in response to dissemination activities at conferences.
The categories and subcategories of the taxonomy remain unchanged, but further topics and examples have been added to illustrate and clarify the use and range of each category.
Finally, the next steps in the IDCnet WP3 strategy are briefly described.
Keywords: Design for All, identifying core knowledge and skills, curriculum development, curriculum design, teaching pilots.
The purpose of this document is to present IDCnet's progress on identifying key knowledge and skill sets for Design for All in sectors related to the Information Society. The work of IDCnet is to support the eEurope's objective to produce curricula recommendations on Design for All for designers and engineers in the field of ICT [1].
Design for All, while it cannot be considered as a discipline in its own right, is largely not catered for within existing related courses on HCI, design and computer science. As our results show, there is also a place for Design for All topics in other disciplines, such as business oriented studies, like management and marketing.
Design for All knowledge sets and skills can therefore be viewed as falling into two main groups. The first contains knowledge sets and skills that could be picked up and used in many subject areas, with some tuning. The second group of knowledge sets are related more specifically to the ICT sector. However, it should be borne in mind that in the increasingly networked information age, where embedded technology surrounds us, in all manner of devices, the work carried out in the ICT design sectors is less and less well defined and flows into other areas, as can be seen with applications of smart gadgets, wearable computing and ambient intelligence, requiring for instance, far greater anthropomorphic and ergonomic input than has previously been the case.
Central to this report, is the outcome of the strategies used to identify knowledge sets and skills, which has taken the form of a taxonomy, in order to give structure to the body of knowledge. The categories and subcategories within the taxonomy are meant to be broad enough to endure, although the specific topics and examples that fall within them are sometimes time dependent. Such is the nature of the subject, closely linked to advances in technology, that the content of some categories will need continual updating. However, it appears that, consistent with other methodologies for shaping curricula recommendations, the basic categories and subcategories for the body of knowledge are now defined.
As this was a «living» document, and further activities have taken place since this deliverable was first submitted, this version presents a substantially expanded chapter 5, incorporating comments from the project review process; the new members of IDCnet; as well as comments received from colleagues in response to dissemination activities. The categories of the taxonomy remain unchanged, but further topics and examples have been added to illustrate and clarify the use and range of each category.
The task of IDCnet is to further the inclusion of Design for All into curricula. The experience of the members of IDCnet is mostly to do with University education at all levels, but this does not mean that the work carried out here is exclusive to that level of teaching or learner base. The workpackage that is the subject of this deliverable seeks to define the superset of the sets of knowledge that make up Design for All topics, and to lay out some explanation of what these include, and in what context they could be taught. As such, this is not a curriculum in the narrow sense of the word, with a bounded set of objectives and learning outcomes, complete with teaching strategies and assessment and evaluation structures, but a taxonomy of Design for All knowledge, from which to draw curricula recommendations.
Design for All is at the same time a philosophy and a movement. It can be seen as an extension of HCI, but it should not be seen as a discipline. This is neither a new genre of design, nor a separate topic. It is a general approach to designing in which designers ensure that their products and services address the needs of the widest possible audience, irrespective of age or ability [2]. For this reason, knowledge sets and skills described here are to be considered as topics to be picked up and incorporated into existing curricula. The time is right for this. The work of the Design for All movement, the increasing voice of the disabled community, to a great extent empowered by technological advances, along with the climate of change within scientific disciplines, that are undergoing deep shifts of the paradigms upon which they are founded is leading to re-design of curricula and research policies in areas that are fundamental to the Information Society [3].
Curriculum design and development is the subject of much collaborative research. Recent years have seen much activity within this area. The reasons for this are several, amongst them:
Put another way, course and curriculum design is changing. "There are increasing social and economic pressures on higher education to generate a wider range of knowledge, skills and attitudes for coping with the demands of our 'supercomplex age'. The current pace of technological and social change is impelling teachers to think in terms of educating students not for today's problems but for those of tomorrow." [4].
Among the many different conceptions of what a curriculum is, a useful broad definition is that «the curriculum is the design for good and successful student learning» [5]. According to this interpretation, curriculum design includes considerations of
The work described in this deliverable concerns mainly the first point, identifying what is to be learnt.
Other educational experts [6] take a finer grained view of the process of designing the curriculum, approaching the design at the course level. At this level the tasks seen are to:
In our case, it is not possible to follow this sequence, because we are not at the level of granularity of designing a course. However, the list should be retained for the other important lessons it offers, for instance, the need to establish student characteristics.
The methodology followed by IDCnet has broadly been that followed by the IEEE/ACM joint activities on curricula recommendations [7], namely to gather together a large number of experts to define a body of knowledge, to divide it into areas, and then assign a group of experts to each area to further distinguish topics within these areas.
This methodology has been followed for several reasons. First is that the aim of IDCnet is not to produce complete curricula, but recommendations. Therefore this methodology was more appropriate than other curriculum design methodologies which concentrate on creating a complete curriculum as an independent entity. This approach is not appropriate for Design for All since it cannot be described as a distinct discipline, and therefore it cannot be taught in isolation from other subjects. Indeed, Design for All can be useful introduced into many subject specialities, from Architecture to Marketing. Further this methodology enables flexibility; topics can be added or discarded as technology advances, as well as a structure for all efforts to be mapped to, aiding curriculum designers to acquire an overall picture of the subject without needing to be experts in every area.
A review of the contemporary literature on curriculum development indicates that much of the existing work either: (a) focuses on the development of educational resources; or (b) identifies desirable features of development methods without providing any practical guidance [8]. For this reason, the next section discusses what has been done as funded work on curriculum development within the EU, and measures the work plan and strategy of IDCnet against it, in order to better comprehend the scope of activities within this work package.
The EU, through its DG on Education and Culture and its programmes Socrates and Erasmus has funded a large number of curriculum development projects [9]. These projects support three types of activities in the area of curricula jointly developed by universities.
A report [10] evaluating the progress and results of ongoing and finished projects in the period 1996-1998 found the following characteristics, which are reported below and compared with the aims and achievements of IDCnet.
IDCnet is also in accord with these trends, the first step in any endeavour at curriculum recommendations is to determine the body of knowledge to be learned.
Here IDCnet differs from these curriculum development projects in that while it did seek to meet the needs of industry, there are no other external groups, such as formal associations from which it can seek approval or accreditation. Nor does IDCnet want to view Design for All as specialised education. Rather it sees that knowledge about Design for All should be «infiltrated» into various disciplines and curricula. IDCnet however, does place great store on informing policy making, because it is important in this time of changing curricula to make sure that the re-engineered curricula include Design for All.
Given the short time frame of IDCnet, the funded part of the network does not foresee the development of courses, modules and teaching materials in any systematic way. Instead, use of teaching pilots (unfunded activity) will be made to validate the categories of knowledge sets and skills. In addition, again as unfunded by IDCnet, and indicative of the network members' interest in this area, an attempt will be made to make available material for others to pick up and use, when this does not contravene copyright of the institutions that develop the material.
With regard to «identifying common elements and comparing programmes», «exchanging expertise and including recent research findings», this has been the work of this work package so far.
As noted above and elsewhere, Design for All is in essence a horizontal subject, which needs to be incorporated into design sectors of all types, everywhere where human 'users' are involved.
It is for this reason that IDCnet has as part of its work plan and activity to influence educational and research policies and strategies.
This section serves to justify the strategy followed by IDCnet as part of the larger curriculum development picture.
As has been seen there are different beliefs, values and ideologies in relation to course design. Traditional curriculum design has tended to focus on the transmission of discrete pieces of information, -frequently facts and formulas,-from instructor to learner. This is because the information is considered important in its own right. However, it is well understood by educationalists that information takes on more value when it compliments a need for information. Traditional curriculum design does not reflect this reality, and therefore it often does not provide students with opportunities to develop the kinds of critical thinking skills and problem-solving abilities that are central to thinking and learning [11]. Furthermore, traditional curriculum design does not include opportunities to build the kinds of personal and collaborative skills that support learning [12].
With regard to teaching and learning strategies, curricula most likely to be found at University level follow pedagogical models that range from traditional or discipline based, through performance or system based, to cognitive, personal relevance/experiental and socially critical [6]. In contrast, the current thinking encourages the following trends: firstly to have a project or problem based curriculum; and secondly to have intended course outcomes that encourage analysis, synthesis and application. The rationale is that the action of doing, coupled with reflection on this action, will help towards the generation of new and meaningful learning experiences.
At the same time a whole host of teaching and learning strategies are proposed, such as
Of all this wealth of material on curriculum and learning, the main import for the IDCnet work package on identifying core knowledge and skill sets, is to help to define these sets by setting up learning outcomes for each category of knowledge that has been defined in our taxonomy. That is, although our task here has been to define and document a body of knowledge appropriate for guiding the development of curricula, this body of knowledge can be used to formulate guidance for pedagogy.
As previously stated, in the older teacher-centred approach, teaching was generally seen to be about the transmission of knowledge. As a result, the focus was on what the teacher did, and course objectives were expressed in terms of the content which the teacher would transmit. In the newer learner-centred approach, however, the focus is on what the learner does. The goals of course of learning are nowadays usually expressed in terms of how the learner will be changed as a result of the course. The statements describing the change in student behaviour which should result from taking the course are known as «intended learning outcomes». Teaching then becomes a series of strategies which are devised in order to help students achieve these outcomes.
Learning outcomes are considered to be of primary importance in developing topics or subjects, because they point to the content of the subject, to the appropriate ways of facilitating teaching and learning a subject, and to the appropriate ways of assessing the subject. Thus in a «bottom up» way, the learning outcomes help to shape and structure the content.
Although often used interchangeably, there is a difference between learning outcomes and learning objectives that is to do with level of specificity [13]. Objectives are strict and, usually, very detailed behaviourist statements which specify exactly the action that is to be assessed. Outcomes tend to be more holistic descriptors of the overall goal [14].
Thus to be consistent with current pedagogical thinking, the emphasis should be on learning and not on teaching. Design for All educators should think in terms of what they want the students to learn, rather than what they will teach. Thus each category of knowledge should be associated with goals and learning outcomes.
In addition, the emphasis on the learning experience, as opposed to the teaching method, allows for a constructivist approach to learning, whereby the learners are led to understand the knowledge in a structured way that enables them to view learning as a cumulative experience, acquiring knowledge that is open ended, and enabling them to build upon existing knowledge as the field moves on.
Therefore although the activity described in this workpackage is principally about identifying knowledge and skill sets, rather than about their packaging as instructive content, two suggestions to refine the taxonomy presented in Helsinki are present in this document.
Firstly the skills of team working and interpersonal communication identified as necessary for the practice of Design for All are added as a separate category on the general, horizontal level; that is, these skills apply to all sectors of design.
Secondly, the identification of learning outcomes, will help to lead the implementors of these results to incorporate Design for All in a way that reflects the important pedagogic trends of
Section 5.4 below lists some of the goals that learners might expect after learning about Design for All. More specific learning outcomes for topics within each category should be formulated according to the context of the course and study programme into which the topics have been integrated.
In order to identify the body of knowledge that goes to make up Design for All, three main strategies were followed. The first was to examine current practice, and to build up from offerings an understanding of what areas of knowledge were being taught. This applied to all types of Design for All activity. The second was to examine applications of, and research into, Design for All. The area of online learning proves to be a particularly rich source of input for design for all in the Web based information and online collaboration application areas. These two strategies fed into the third, namely, «consult the experts». This was done by presenting in summary form the results of the first two strategies at a workshop specially convened for the purpose, and continued in online discussion and dissemination activities, in order to approve the body of knowledge by consensus. These strategies are discussed in more detail in the subsections below.
As outlined in Deliverable 3.1, the current teaching practice in Design for All was examined to understand what was being taught. The first discovery was that the most developed area was that of the built environment, with applications to do with the accessible Web coming second. A brief taste is provided below, a fuller discussion of the results can be found in Deliverable 3.1 section 4.
Within the well established courses for built environment it was possible to see that students were being taught about awareness, Design for All rationale and recommendations, they were encouraged to spot bad designs and make suggestions for improvement. Some project work is very elaborate, leading to prototypes of buildings, or areas that are accessible, and sponsored design competitions.
The most prominent courses within ICT were those to do with making the Web accessible. Thanks to both the push from the need for legal compliance in the States with ADA and the inclusion of universal design principles in section 508 on the one hand, the W3C's WAI guidelines, and the availability of various validation tools, on the other, there are many courses, and indeed some of these are online, for learning about this subject. Aside from the technical aspects of these courses, there are components about awareness of the barriers posed by inaccessible design.
One of the most popular areas of Design for All applications, some focus on making the enabling technology accessible, others on instructional design issues, for instance making sure that the syllabus followed is inclusive. The content yielded by this area provides a rich resource of Design for All content that can be cross related to a number of knowledge categories.
One of the most useful resources, Web sites of all types can be used for illustration purposes to demonstrate various topics within knowledge categories, e.g., guidelines for making Web content accessible and usable.
These applications are exemplar in helping students realise the importance of understanding the wider context of user requirements. Those whose condition needs (or would benefit from) constant monitoring present use scenarios that demonstrate clearly the benefits of ICT based systems over existing monitoring systems, provided that user habits, comfort, and privacy are respected.
This relates to research work that could have a bearing on Design for All concerns, for instance, research on intelligent and adaptive interfaces. Such applications may be specifically tuned towards a particular experience, such as understanding where a user is within a context (location awareness) and relaying information to him based upon that knowledge. An example is understanding where a visitor is, or what he is looking at and relaying him material relevant to the artefacts he is observing [15]. Such applications can be rendered to offer richer experiences for users, if the relay system knows a user's preferences, e.g. understands one language better than another, prefers one modality (auditory information) over another (text based information), etc.
The insight gained from the investigation of existing teaching initiatives, as well as relevant applications and related research areas, were collected and organised into a taxonomised body of knowledge. This was presented, along with other contextual information in Deliverable 3.1. "What constitutes Design for All Knowledge?" The original taxonomy was presented as a straight list of categories with examples to explain what areas each category could cover.
The next part of the work plan involved the organisation of a workshop. This was to cover the needs of workpackage 2, which sought to understand firstly, what are the needs of industry in regard to employing people with Design for All knowledge. It was also for workpackage 3, which shared experiences in teaching for Design for All. In the WP3 part of the brainstorming the participants were invited to examine the proposed taxonomy and try to validate it in the light of their own experiences. As a practical measure, they were asked to add to each category examples of what they would teach or would expect to find in this category.
The work of this part of the workshop was collected in detailed narrative and is presented in section 8 as Appendix 1.
As a result of this brainstorming session, several adjustments were made to the categories. The category on resources was discarded as it is not a body of knowledge to be taught but a collection of useful tools. However, in the brainstorming session the examples people noted have formed a useful list. A new category was added, that of interpersonal skills, with the example of advocating attitude change within organisations. In addition, it was recognised that four of the categories may apply across the range of design sectors as category labels, although the content would need to be changed to fit the particular discipline. Hence under the recommendations category, an architect would find technical specifications for accessible buildings, such as height and incline of wheelchair ramps, whereas a Web site designer would expect the same label to render him guidelines for accessible content.
Other comments related to teaching of the knowledge, and gaining accreditation for courses. Although these are very valid points they were not in the scope of the brainstorming which was to concentrate on the superset of the knowledge sets to be presented to learners.
As is usual with such sessions, the brainstormers ran out of time, and it was agreed to continue the discussion by email. To date there has not been much traffic on the list, in spite of initial interest. Motivating busy people to respond to such debates is a well documented problem [16]. Unless the motivation to participate is strong, or the community is well established, it is normal for the debate to peter out. We will attempt to animate the list with further news of IDCnet's activities and calls to participate in 2nd Workshop.
A further source of encouragement and validation is the establishment and exchange of information with experts who were unable to attend the Helsinki Workshop but asked to be kept informed, as well as offering valuable information about activities that they undertake in Design for All Education. These included key figures involved in HCI Curriculum Recommendations, and in the Universal Design Education Initiative in the United States. They also expressed willingness to collaborate with IDCnet for the Education and Research Policy workpackage (Workpackage 4).
A traditional means of disseminating the work of a group is via academic papers and conferences. In order to diffuse the results of this work package, conferences have been targeted that address a slightly different audience each time, in order to spread the message to as many sectors of the design community as possible, and not just to the 'converted'.
Finally, as a result of activity in the area, there are a number of mailing lists where messages are posted to alert members of the existence of IDCnet and its activities and publications, and to invite collaboration, as well as to learn from. These include
This section presents the knowledge sets and skills that were derived from the strategies outlined in section 4 above, and structured as a taxonomy formed of 2 main categories, and 9 subcategories, as shown in the table below. Each set corresponds to a subcategory within the taxonomy, and each subcategory may have many topics, with corresponding examples in it.
Design for All: Core Knowledge Sets and Skills
- Category: General: applicable to all design disciplines
- Design for All Awareness. What is Design for All?
- Why Design for All: ethical considerations, compliance with legislation, commercial potential
- Recommendations: Principles, Guidelines, Standards, Best Practice, etc.
- Interpersonal Skills: effective communication in multidisciplinary design teams
- Category: Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Sector
- Accessible content
- Accessible input and output
- New paradigms of Interaction, Applications and Research
- User centred design
- Application Domains and Research
The categories and subcategories within the taxonomy are meant to be broad enough to endure, although certain topics and examples that fall in each subcategory are time dependent. Such is the nature of the subject, closely linked to advances in technology, that the content of the categories will need continual updating. However, and consistent with other methodologies for shaping curricula recommendations, the basic subcategories for the body of knowledge are defined. Even after scrutiny from wider audience comprising new members of IDCnet, and other colleagues with experience in the area, the subcategories of the taxonomy have remained stable.
The purpose of the taxonomy is to classify information concerned with DfA so that prospective instructors/ curriculum designers can see at a glance what types of information are involved. At the same time it needs to be wideenough to be applicable in many different areas and forward looking enough to provide for new information to be classified in the existing schema rather than continually create new subcategories.
The taxonomy, by providing this classification system helps other stakeholders to "pigeonhole" information and orientate themselves. This applies to collectors of information, such as researchers and librarians, as well as learners who find it a good road map of where they are and where they want to go, especially when overwhelmed with the large amount of literature and resources on the web.
The taxonomy can be used as a basis for teaching pilots, but not all subcategories may be presented to students, this depends on other factors such as length of course, or module, background of students, perceived needs for expertise, etc.
In brief, whether it be to draw up curricula recommendations, or to organise content for a Design for All course, someunderstanding of the field and its aims, even if it cannot be called a discipline, is required, and the taxonomy provides the framework for this understanding.
The material in these categories is open to «breadth versus depth of knowledge» approaches. That is, determining what the student has to be aware of, as opposed to what the student is expected to be able to know well and be able to apply. This cannot be specified in the taxonomy, it is up to individual institutions/instructors, or in the case of self study, the students themselves, to decide what level of competency in what particular topics is required.
The whole range of subcategories could be used, making the basis of a course. It is particularly suitable for design students, provided they have already had tuition in topics concerned with design processes. A more flexible approach would be to take topics from the sets or categories in a "mix and match" style to blend into on going courses. This could be done at a module level, or even blended into units, for instance teaching how to code for Braille output, alongside coding for other types of output.
Some sets may diminish in importance, or even fade away over time. This would certainly be the hope for the Awareness category and the Why Design for All category, the idea being that the philosophy of Design for all becomes so well established as part of design that there is no longer a necessity to emphasise it, or to rationalise it. However, if the slowness of related areas like human factors and HCI is any indication, then we shall need these categories for some time to come. At least however, the idea of Design for All as a social value, may progress, especially if, as has been suggested Spanish DfA educationalists, DfA is included in the secondary school curriculum. On the other hand, the new interaction paradigms set is only bound to grow, in the face of new advances in networked and wireless technology, its pervasiveness and our dependence upon information.
The four subcategories in the general category, are, as the category implies, relevant to all design disciplines, including architecture, transport, product design, etc. Within each subcategory, the content could be tailored to specific sectors. Although, of course, for teaching purposes, it is often very useful to make analogies with work from other sectors, for example, the built environment, to illustrate a point, e.g. «An inaccessible web site is like an inaccessible building, it doesn't matter how nice it is inside, if I can't get in.» In addition, as boundaries are being broken down between disciplines, it becomes increasingly important for designers of all disciplines to at least be aware of what is happening in other areas. For teaching and curriculum purposes, it is always useful to see how Design for All is being taught in other sectors, and if there are ways to use ideas.
In the subsections that follow, each subcategory is described, giving several examples of the type of knowledge for each , and indicative learning outcomes. Some further examples of topics under each category can be found in both deliverable 3.1, and very briefly in the Appendix to the workshop report (see Section 8).
This knowledge category serves most often as an introduction to Design for All. By various means students are encouraged to think of users in a wider category than just mirror images of themselves, to understand how barriers are unintentionally put up when user needs are not sufficiently understood.
One of the most valuable tools to use [17] here is to invite guest (disabled) speakers who can describe first hand the problems they face, and perhaps demonstrate some of the technologies that allow them to access ICTs. Failing "live" guests, there are some very instructive short videos available for instructional use, such as those produced by WEBAIM [18], where a blind and a deaf user each demonstrate some of the problems they face, and the tools they use. Also the IDCnet project will make available shortly through its Web site different digital versions of the video «Web sites that Work», produced by the EU, WAI and RNIB.
The important point to get across is that Design for All is not a euphemism for «Design for the Disabled», but design rather for a diversity of users, with a range of abilities, or even for different capabilities. So while practical exercises can be used here, like empathic modelling [19] to simulate some of the effects of aging, or disability, simulation exercises can also be used to show that «handicapping situations», such as holding a baby while trying to send an SMS on an unfamiliar mobile phone, can result in failure to accomplish the tasks successfully. (In the class at the Aegean, the rather confident male student who did not believe he would have any problems, not only failed to send the message, he also dropped the «baby», which fortunately was only a doll!)
Finally another strategy is encouraging students to observe examples of bad design [20]. This can be used as a measure of the success of the awareness exercises, observing how students set about the task of reappraising the world around them, beginning to see obstacles, or possible obstacles, where previously they had not noticed any, or not given any thought to the matter. Typically, the first examples to be brought forward are examples from the built environment such as access to building or transport, and then with devices (public phones, lifts) then bad signage, and gradually, asking themselves as they engage with other ICT products and systems around them, such as the University's online library software, or the online administration system, if these are usable by other types of users.
Experience in the teaching pilots has shown that students, after this first 'awakening', start to flounder with definitions of Design for All. In an effort to reject the 'one size fits all' misconception, they begin to think in terms of designing that several alternative solutions for different categories of users is the way to design for all, only to quickly realise that logically this is an unscaleable, unmanageable, and unrealistic solution. In awareness exercises, it is important to emphasise the fact that people do not fall into neat categories. A useful tool to illustrate the notion of design for all is to use the usability pyramid graphic of Nordby [21].
Figure 1: The usability pyramid (Nordby, 2003)
This presents all users of ICT equipment and services as a pyramid with human abilities along the vertical axis, from good at the bottom to very poor at the top. There is a wide base containing those who can access all services and devices directly. Above that is a smaller section containing those who can access equipment and services only with some form of adaptation (e.g. getting up very close to read a display, memorising a sequence of actions, users marking a smartcards to remind them which way to insert them, etc.). Above this is a still smaller section containing those who need some form of assistive technology (e.g. supplementary large display for visually impaired people, special keyboard for blind or motor impaired people, extra amplification for hearing impaired people, etc.) to access equipment and services. At the apex of the pyramid are those people who can only access services and devices with the assistance of another person. The goal of Design for All therefore is to push the boundary between «Those who can use all» and «With adaptation» as far up as possible. Put another way, it could be DfA could be understood not as «one size fits all» but «one size fits most».
Students are made aware of problems faced by users in various contexts, e.g. access to built environment, products and services, to information sources especially the Web. Students understand that Design for All, does not mean one universal solution, ('one size fits all') but the inclusion of accommodations that serve many situations and users, i.e. both those with disabilities and those in handicapping situations. Students are warned from thinking the only way to deal with Design for All is to design for different categories of user, and to focus on capabilities: for example, a device should be capable of withstanding tremor, whether it be caused by the user having Parkinsons or the user using the device on a moving train.
Under this knowledge subcategory students are introduced to three complementary rationales for Design for All, as given in the subtitle above.
Students are made aware of the rationales for Design for All. This helps them to understand the importance of the topic from several angles, and is good motivation. At the same time it enables them to marshal arguments in its favour, and justify its existence on several levels.
This knowledge subcategory is used flexibly for topics such as Principles, Guidelines, Standards, Recommendations, and Specifications that have a bearing on Design for All. In addition, the legislation that uses standards as their basis can also be referred to. As can be expected, there are many, many examples, and a few are given below for illustrative purposes, mostly concentrating on those that have a bearing on ICT
Students are made aware that such bodies of knowledge exist, and where to find them. They should be encouraged to search for such work and consult them as a first step, whenever they are set a task.
Students may need to be shown how to make use of these resources. It may be necessary to demonstrate the need for interpretation from the general and abstract to the particular, so that they can use and implement them in specific contexts. Several other points about the use of recommendations may also need to be made. The "jargon" of each type of recommendation is a consideration, as is the difference between a formal standard, backed by an accredited standards body, compared with a informal set of «rules of thumb». The terms "recommendations", "specifications" and "guidelines" are used in various ways. Students need to understand what can be seen as authoritative and validated, and what is less so. Currency is another issue. A de jure standard may become outdated quicker than a de facto one, simply because the process for formal standards tends to be lengthy, while technical standards, because of the advances in technology are liable to become outdated, so the most recent version should be sought.
As students are engaged on learning about, or carrying out tasks in, for instance, accessible content, the guidelines referring to this could be invoked. Given the interest of industry in standards and legislation, for students engaged in a course of continuing professional development, this subcategory will probably be of more interest than to the typical undergraduate. Most in-house training for corporate professionals is done using the guidelines provided by their own companies. The issue of interoperability and to open source work needs to be seen in the context of design for all, that is not locking people into one supplier.
This category is slightly different from the preceding ones because it centres on skills rather than on knowledge. These are mainly behavioural skills such as team work, communication skills, information representation, information retrieval, etc. and are recognised as being very important to interdisciplinary ICT based work practice [30]. There are several studies, both in teaching literature and in business practice noting the increasing importance of "soft skills".
However, many of the techniques used in these soft skills to not explicitly pay any attention to Design for All, although they could be very useful. To describe some of these techniques, it is necessary to refer to the actual teaching strategies that are the most useful way to give students the opportunity to learn these skills, e.g. organising team projects, presentations and critical evaluations (critiques).
Students must be encouraged to make sure that they adhere to the principles of design for all, even in their presentation material. For instance, they are asked to think more carefully about colour and layout of the slides, imagining that they must cater for those who are visually impaired or are sitting too far back in the auditorium to be able to see. By the same token, if they use diagrams or images, they should refer to them, briefly describing them.
They should take care to face their audience and enunciate clearly, this is important for lip readers, for signers, but also to people listening to a language that is not their mother tongue, as well as to those who reinforce their understanding with facial gestures and body language. They should maintain coordination between what is projected visually and what they are saying.
Other ways students may experiment is with using tools that read aloud slides (primarily for use by presenters with a vocal impediment, used by one student recovering from an operation and needing to minimise the use of her voice). Other materials, like videos, should ideally be captioned. At the very least, they need to be explained and described by the presenter.
Paying attention to their communication style in the sense of really thinking about the actual and potential needs of their audience, helps students generally with these soft skills. For instance, they scan the audience to see if there are any obvious problems in terms of lighting and acoustics, they make sure not to stand in front of the projector, or obscure it during their presentation, etc.
Other techniques include those for dealing with critiques. When a question is asked from the floor the question should be repeated for the benefit of the whole audience. This should be standard practice, but even more necessary if the questioner has a speech defect, or bad command of the language, that may impede other listeners understanding.
Besides presentation materials, students can be encouraged to submit their written work in digital formats that allows it to be made accessible to different modalities, for instance in easily convertible code.
Finally, within a work context these skills can be used to good effect to help to convince colleagues and superiors of the importance of including Design for All.
Students are made aware of the existence of these skills, their importance to the workplace, and to Design for All, and that they should themselves make sure of good DfA practice.
As its label implies, this subcategory refers to ways of ensuring the that 'content', mostly the type of e-content found on information and interactive Web sites, is accessible to all. This category is perhaps the one most often used for courses on web accessibility, which uses the WAI guidelines as their basis. However, there is other information and knowledge to do with accessible content that is also very useful. For instance there are several sources of information to be found in various communication studies dealing with literacy, with dyslexia, with how people read on screen, as opposed to on paper, that are all also useful.
Topics can include:
From this subcategory, the material can be studied at the theoretical level, understanding perception and comprehension of different types of content, including findings from literary analysis to cinematography, and also at the practical "how-to" level. It can apply to students who are Web designers with training in information and communication design, or web designers whose background is in pure computer science. Topics and their related objectives can become more specific, for instance, learning how to code for accessibility using different technologies The next deliverable, on the teaching pilots, will report on several ways of teaching this topics from this subcategory, such as a practical exercise in captioning a video, using SMIL, coding for Braille output, using automatic checkers, etc.
Students develop the ability to understand when content is problematic and why. They learn about current methods and techniques to produce accessible content, or to convert content. Depending upon type of student/course, they develop to varying degrees the ability to create or aid in creating accessible content/convert or aid in converting content.
This label is subtitled input and output to help to explicate this subcategory. It is defined as the hardware and software enablement of interaction. As assistive technologies, many of these devices are unknown to students. Yet as part of everyday device functionality, they accept features on their mobile phones like vibrating alerts and flashing lights, or a whole range of remote controlled devices. All these were originally belong to specialist technology, now all mainstream. How users make use of these alternatives provide insight into human abilities and inspiration for use in products designed for the majority
Topics here would include:
Students are introduced to a range of different input and output modalities, devices that support them, and technical considerations. As with other categories, depending upon the specific course objectives and the background of the students, the material can range from "knowledgeable about" to "knowing how to" -that is, competent to talk about these topics; understanding at a general level how they function; to being able to actually develop and/or working on developments based upon them. In each case, the input and output is accessible in so far as it helps greater numbers of people to interact with the products and systems.
This subcategory was created as a "catch all" for the work that is mostly in research state currently, but within the next five years -the typical time span of an undergraduate+master's university education- could breakthrough into mainstream development.
It is an important subcategory to have because it introduces students to the leading edge research in the area, research that often helps to keep Design for All on the agenda in Universities. Topics that can be distinguished are affective and social computing, a range of smart computing applications, such as smart homes, wearable computing (clothes and accessories) in vehicle telematic systems, pervasive and mobile computing, ambient intelligence, etc. Do these areas always incorporate a Design for All dimension. Not always, but many have their roots in inclusive design, such as smart homes for independent living, wearable computing to monitor vital life signs in infants at risk, and Fiat's in-car telematic systems research aimed at elderly users.
Another possible example is that of Digital TV. At the present time, there is much debate on digital TV, and its potential use as a web access device for interactive services. The thinking is that it will help to include users who are presently excluded because of economic reasons, or because they are not computer literate, or both. It is being spoken of as a tool for e-inclusion, the first steps are being taken by CENELEC [30] to try to ensure interoperability of the systems, the debate about what it might mean to users has just begun.
Students become familiar with the emerging paradigms, understanding how they have evolved from current work. Further specialisation depends upon both the background of the students, and degree of emergence of the paradigm. In each case, students must be encouraged to view these developments through the «lens» of Design for All, to discourage new technology being developed that is exclusive.
This category is the one into which go all the human, user, usability/accessibility philosophies, methodologies, techniques that apply to requirements and evaluation phases of design, etc. Many of these are routinely taught as part of HCI courses, but as they are currently used they do not always include diversity in users and situations.
This means that some methodologies will not be suitable for some users, and others will need some rethinking to make them so. Special accommodations that have to be made when including a diversity of users in the user-centred design lifecycle relate to practical issues about how to deal with disabled/elderly users. For instance, how to elicit rating scales from very elderly people, how to do a concurrent or retrospective verbal protocol with a blind person (in the first instance, if they are using speech synthesis, the design of the elicitation should ensure that the subjects don't talk over the speech; in the second instance, all interaction needs to be described to the subjects, which is not very easy, nor productive). Some users cannot be considered for verbal protocols because of difficulties with cognitive or physiological disorders that prevent them responding.
Some of the problems relate to the nature of the methodologies themselves: for some time past, one of the prevailing methods of doing comparative user studies was to group subjects according to user characteristics - such as novice /experienced users. However, for design for all, it is not useful to think in dichotomies, young/old, disabled/non disabled users. Instead there is a continuum of abilities on various dimensions.
Again, over focusing on one disability (the blind) might lead to design that favours one disability while causing new problems for other disabilities.
As people age, their abilities decrease, but they are not always aware of this, as they can compensate in many ways, especially if supported by technological design. Thus in this case, older people may not accurately judge their abilities.
Another important issue in using user-centred design with disabled and elderly people is the evidence of very strong "demand characteristics" -a phenomenon well known in psychological research-, where subjects give designers what they think they want to hear. Techniques that can get round such problems need to be devised, or different methods used.
It is also necessary to be sensitive to the unstated needs of users. There are many examples past and present of devices that fulfill technical requirements with the functionality that was needed, but are so displeasing aesthetically, or worse, stigmatise their owners, to the point that they will choose not to use them. Obstrusive hearing aids, and lately, the loop, can be cited as examples.
What distinguishes Design for All from human-centred design is that students have to put more effort into understanding users needs, and not think that they do. For instance, when asked, most students felt that the deaf community has no problem with text, and would be adequately compensated with systems that provided them text equivalents. They did not appreciate that this is the case mostly for those who went deaf later in life, and that for those who are born deaf, or are deaf from an early age, the chances are that their schooling will have enabled them to attain reading skills that are not much beyond elementary school level. Assumptions about user abilities need to be supported, or disproved. To aid in this task there are many sources that describe the functional aspects of various impairments and disabilities [31].
Students are made aware of the work in this area, the methods and tools available, and are alerted to the fact that some accommodations need to be made, and workarounds found, when a wide diversity of user capabilities is being put at the centre of the design process. The benefits of this approach are that the design concepts will be stressed to the limit, at an early stage, allowing the design team to rethink misconceptions and parts of the design they had taken for granted.
This label can refer to "application domains", and separately to research issues and challenges that go with them, or it can view these two activities as related, dependent upon the case.
This subcategory has a wealth of domains, such as public access to information, authoring environments, health monitoring, and leisure activities, (online games) etc. An application domain of much concern at the moment is that of eGovernment, and with understanding that "traditional" government services will eventually be phased out it is important that every one has access to these services, and that the services themselves are accessible and usable.
However, by far and away, the area where the most work has been done, bringing with it important contributions to the whole area of Design for All, as well as results that can be used in other application domains, is that of online learning, and for this reason is it described in more detail below.
Studying Design for All in a specific application domain within the ICT sector offers a means to help students move from abstract to focused examples of use. Domains of application may be used as the basis for students to do project work. This allows them to consolidate knowledge acquired from other subcategories of the taxonomy.
The education sector, and in particular the higher education e-learning sector is well advanced in its considerations of what it means to have accessible e-learning. It is in this domain that one finds courses built around Web technologies, making content accessible and making interaction accessible. Typically the development of accessible instructional materials is a distributed process, where course materials are a combination of instructor created materials, including assessment/evaluation materials (tests and quizzes); existing materials that an instructor links to; and the organisational and evaluation capabilities of some course management tool. In addition, classroom collaborative activity is simulated by some kind of synchronous or asynchronous conferencing system. Thus within this application domain, much work deals with issues of accessible content and accessible collaboration is being pioneered here.
Two possible scenarios are described.
As a further guide to the content of Design for All curricula, the following overall instructional goals are offered. Educators can use a variety of topics, combined in ways that suit them, to meet these goals.
The goals themselves are based upon what appears in current taught courses as objectives, and what was expressed in various ways (either in presentations, discussion of presentations, or brainstorming sessions) by the participants at the workshop.
Learners who have followed courses on Design for All should be able to:
In order to progress further with the work on content definition for curricula recommendations, the next part of the work package foresees the establishment of teaching pilots, to be undertaken at various institutions, associated to members of IDCnet. In most cases, these are not seen as whole courses, but as modules inserted into existing courses, or even topics within existing modules. This is partly because of the difficulty of introducing institution wise, new courses, and partly because the overall understanding is that Design for All is not, and should not be a discipline in its own right, but a horizontal action, that crosses boundaries, and that can most usefully be included within established courses.
Teaching is presently ongoing, and/or negotiations are underway in the following. Of special note here is the European dimension to the teaching, so that material is both European wide, and yet tuned to diverse educational cultures that continue to prevail in Europe:
The progress of these pilots will be reported on in deliverable 3.3. The aim of these pilots is both to demonstrate the robustness of the knowledge sets and skills, as well as to understand what needs to be done to introduce these topics into courses in a permanent way. The obstacles and problems, constructive ways to tackle them, and recommendations for their incorporation will provide input to the WP4, the work package on education and research policy strategies.
1st IDCnet Workshop - Saturday 15th February 2003
Authors: Lilian Henze, Päivi Tahkokallio
The main objective of the workshop was to bring together Industry and Education to:
On the first day of the workshop the focus was on the industrial perspective (see report from the 1st day of the workshop) and some insight in the diversity of ICT industry and was gained.
The second day focused on the "educational perspective". Although "Industry" will be the "end user" of the graduates (the "product" of ICT education), the educators will be the main users of the curriculum modules to be developed.
This leads to another objective of this workshop: understanding the diversity of ICT design education cultures.
The practical aim of the second day of the Helsinki workshop was to create the report: Identifying Core Knowledge and Skill sets for DfA curricula.
Sum up previous session (Jim Sandhu)
The presentations and discussions of the first day lead to the following insights related to education:
Qualities required are: flexibility of approach, emotional intelligence, empathy, social awareness, open attitudes, networking skills, inter-disciplinary skills, awareness of designers' responsibilities in team work.
Academia Session: Intro (Jenny Darzentas)
All participants had received beforehand the report D3.1. What constitutes DfA knowledge?
In her introduction of this day Jenny Darzentas outlined briefly the contents of the report.
Teaching DfA in HCI (Julio Abascal)
Julio started his presentation with the discussion on 'what is design for all?'. He visualised the discussion with the following images:
Figure 2. What is Design for All (Abascal, 2003)
In his practice of teaching design for all he prefers to use the right image as a definition.
He defined the following needs to teach DfA in Human Computer Interaction:
In his conclusions Julio stressed the importance of starting teaching DfA at an undergraduate level, that it is crucial to have a practical tool and that students should be motivated.
DfA at the University of Namur (Monique Noirhomme-Fraiture)
In her presentation Monique explained how the education at the Computer Science Faculty of the University of Namur was organised. Although there was no dedicated course on Design for All there was an 30 hrs. obligatory course on Human Computer Interaction. Some students take up the DfA field in their thesis work. In the description of the HCI course she made us understand that Design for All is included in Usability principles and guidelines (see www.info.fundp.ac.be/saphir/saphV02).
Monique finished her presentation with a critical remark on the poor attendance of designers in relevant workshops of the Working Group HCI and Disability of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP WG 13.3). This has lead to the conclusions that accessibility should be included in the training of designers and a more interdisciplinary activity between IFIP working groups is necessary.
She announced the International conference on Human-Computer Interaction in September 03 in Zurich: Interact'03.
DfA in the Jyväskylä Polytechnic. (Juha Hautanen)
(presentation not available)
DfA - the view from Delft (Johan Molenbroek)
Johan elaborated on the education on Ergonomics in Delft University in the Netherlands. Ergonomics is mainly educated at the Faculty of Industrial Design, not surprisingly, knowing that the mission of this faculty is 'creating products for people'. Not only are ergonomic courses obligatory in first, second and fourth year of the study (theory and practice courses of 140-160 hrs), ergonomics is also integrated in the student projects.
Additional elective courses can be done; DfA is one of the 10 possible courses.
Design for All is subject in student projects, graduation projects and university projects.
Only recently ergonomics is introduced at the Faculty of Architecture, a breakthrough in a culture so much focused on shape and material.
Learning units on DfA for computer science students (Gerhard Weber)
At the Multimedia Campus of the University of Kiel, DfA is integrated in the Computer Science curriculum learning units Technical Computer Science, Theoretical CS and Applied CS. Gerhard showed some interesting examples of each learning unit like speech processing and force feedback in Technical CS, braille code as a binary code in Theoretical CS, a database with dictionary design for sign language in Applied CS. He shared his enthusiasm for the possibilities in nomadic teaching and nomadic eLearning.
In his conclusions he stated that a multi-dimensional approach was required to stimulate the process of introducing DfA, resources should be provided to other disciplines in your field and processes should be visible.
DfA in the City University London (Helen Petrie)
At the City University of London has a tradition of disability related research. Helen showed in her presentation how development of education in DfA and eAccessibilty should be possible built on this commitment. The Centre for HCI Design, where Helen is working, provides teaching support in HCI, including DfA and eAccessibility.
She preferred to reach the broadest range of students with some knowledge of DfA instead of teaching an advanced course. This led to teaching undergraduates, more advanced undergraduates and master level courses on HCI. In her conclusions she proposed a level of professionalism to be reached with DfA education:
Besides the importance of ensuring that DfA is considered a core skill of all computing students at the level of School Policy, she stressed the importance of ensuring that DfA is part of the core curriculum at the level of professional bodies.
DfA in the Technical University of Stockholm (Frederik Winberg)
(presentation not available)
Main objective of the brainstorm was to identify/validate categories for producing modules and courses in DfA. 'Key knowledge and skill sets'
Categories proposed in the baseline document [D3.1 chapter 5: Content of Courses] were written on flip charts and white board to have a reasonable starting point for the brainstorming session
The categories can be divided in two groups. Categories 1-3 (awareness raising / why DfA / recommendation (legislation, guidelines)) are more horizontal, valid independent of the field of Design for All [built environment, product design, ICT, etc.] in the course. Categories 4-9 (knowledge on accessible contents / knowledge on accessible interfaces / new paradigms of interaction / usability studies, HCI, user-centred design, evaluation methods / ICT application areas / useful sources) are more directly connected to ICT education.
An extra flip chart for categories 'not identified yet' was also made available for participants in the brainstorming session.
In order to get insight in the practical value of the categories (which do hold, which should be combined, which should be broken down, which should be removed etc.), a team method to produce ideas was used. Participants were asked to discuss in small groups (2-4 people) and to write down examples, within each category, of what they would teach (or already teach) to their students.
The results of this exercise are attached in an appendix.
In the following discussion the following topics were touched:
Remarks on the brainstorm process:
Question: was it easy to find examples?
Answers/discussion:
Question: why are there so different types of examples in categories 1, 2 and 3?
Answers/discussion:
Question: next steps?
Answers/discussion:
The Brainstorm session and round table discussions made it clear, that this workshop was only a starting point of a process that needs to be continued. As some participants said: 'this is clearly an iterative process'.
Discussion on the possible categories continues via email to produce a second round of categories analysed [an applied Delphi method]. The email list is hosted by the Catholic University in Leuven, address helsinki@listserv.cc.kuleuven.ac.be.
Meeting the workshop's objectives
Recommendations for the 2nd IDCnet workshop
1 awareness raising
2 why design for all
3 recommendations (legislation, guidelines)
4 knowledge on accessible contents:
5 knowledge on accessible interfaces
6 new paradigms of interaction (related to ICT)
7 usability studies, HCI, user-centred design, evaluation methods
8 ICT application areas
9 useful sources
? not identified yet