Workshop feedback

We had an enjoyable and thought-provoking day with 16 participants from academia. We were also privileged to have along three representatives of the older population, from the community internet cafe at Connah's Quay. They helped to enliven and ground the discussions with their humorous and down-to-earth descriptions of what it is like for an older person trying to learn to use a computer from scratch.

Discussion questions

Various discussion questions were posed during the day, including:

Who are "older people"? How do we divide them into meaningful groups for study?

• Useful definitions of older people depend on what you're studying
• Chronological age is less useful than factors like social circumstances, cognition ability and fitness levels. These are often related to chronological age but not necessarily so, as we all start at different baselines

Recruitment

• There is a tendency to have more women (as they are more socially connected) and more professional "types". We need to try harder to recruit to reflect the population as a whole.
• One good way to recruit is through community organisations. There may be a slow start, but usually there's eventually a snowball effect as people tell others.

What methods are most effective for considering older people?

• It is important to talk to older people directly. However, it may be hard for them to generate ideas from scratch and they may not always know what they want. Therefore, it's better to ask them about their experiences and get them to improve on existing ideas.

What helps older people to have a voice?

• It is important for them to have a sense of ownership, feeling that their input is valued and used. So let them see the results of their feedback and keep them involved throughout the process, not on a one-off basis.
• It is also important that they feel comfortable, e.g. making the research activity into a social event

How can designers consider older users when working under commercial pressures?

• If resources are limited, sometimes you need to reduce the scope of a study (particularly research studies)
• Findings need to be disseminated better to industry, so that existing findings are more readily available and don't need to be replicated
• If user involvement really isn't possible (e.g. due to copyright/IP issues), then methods like personas and guidelines can be helpful to help designers keep the users and their needs in mind.

Design exercise

We also conducted a design exercise. Participants were divided into groups, each of which was given a set of cards describing various possible design and user methods. They were asked to choose the most appropriate methods for different parts of the design process. For each part of the design process, they also picked one method in particular, and expanded on how they would use it and the kind of findings they would expect to get from it.

Participants seemed to find the exercise engaging, and particularly liked the use of the method cards. The exercise got the participants thinking about design methods and user methods and how they could be used, and was a prelude to some of the discussions described above.

The groups came up with similar but not identical sets of methods, which varied between stages of design:

• For requirements gathering, there was an emphasis on real contact with users, although expert opinion was also highly valued.
• For early concept generation, mind mapping and storyboards were considered important, as was feedback from users on ideas (perhaps presented using storyboards, etc)