A Videophone Prototype System Evaluated by Elderly Users in the Living Lab Schwechat

  • Authors:

  • Johannes Oberzaucher;Katharina Werner;Harald P. Mairböck;Christian Beck;Paul Panek;Walter Hlauschek;Wolfgang L. Zagler

  • Affiliations:

  • CEIT RALTEC, Schwechat, Austria 2320;CEIT RALTEC, Schwechat, Austria 2320;Telekom Austria TA AG Vienna, Austria;fortec --- Research Group on Rehabilitation Technology, Vienna Univ. of Technology, Vienna, Austria A-1040;CEIT RALTEC, Schwechat, Austria 2320 and fortec --- Research Group on Rehabilitation Technology, Vienna Univ. of Technology, Vienna, Austria A-1040;CEIT RALTEC, Schwechat, Austria 2320;CEIT RALTEC, Schwechat, Austria 2320 and fortec --- Research Group on Rehabilitation Technology, Vienna Univ. of Technology, Vienna, Austria A-1040

  • Venue:
  • USAB '09 Proceedings of the 5th Symposium of the Workgroup Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering of the Austrian Computer Society on HCI and Usability for e-Inclusion
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Elderly people often experience difficulties in using modern Information and Communication Technologies. This paper presents findings of an evaluation and a field test of a touch screen based internet videophone system mounted in a wooden frame in order to provide a non technical appearance. During a 14-day lasting field test in real-life environment the goal was to evaluate if and to what extent the elderly participants would benefit from using such a modern multimodal way of communication. Four prototype systems were installed in four private homes and were tested successfully by six persons. It was found that the elderly users actually benefited from the touchscreen control, the proportionally large-scale GUI and the VoIP-and video-telephone functions. Despite the small scale of the evaluation the gathered data demonstrates the potential this technology might have in daily life in particular for the emerging ambient assisted living (AAL) area.