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5. Broadband - an enabling technology or an insurmountable barrier?

Meg Galley - President of the Ergonomics Society

I am the President of the Ergonomics Society, and as such am therefore very concerned with people. Also as a member of the Consumer Policy Committee of BSI, I am a consumer representative, which is also my role within ANEC, which is the European equivalent of the BSI Consumer Policy Committee. I am also on the ETSI Human Factors Working Group, and my concern is for users, so I might have a slightly different perspective.

We have had definitions of broadband. Really I am not actually terribly concerned with what broadband is. We have a definition here, Fig 5.1:

Fig 5.1 Broadband definition

It is essentially talking about it being a communication channel, and the communication channel that allows us to communicate large amounts of stuff very rapidly. Broadband as such is not really what we are talking about; it is what it can actually do for us. It is very much here to facilitate other activities. It is not about broadband; it is about what broadband can do for us.

What does it do? It facilitates. It facilitates communication, independence, control, control of your life, safety, entertainment and enjoyment, which tends to be the area that is possibly best developed at the moment because, quite frankly, that is where the bucks are in terms of service providers, and hopefully it can facilitate a better quality of life. That is the important thing. We need to make sure that it is facilitating a good quality of life for everybody.

But it has limitations. It needs to have an interface somehow. We have heard about various interfaces and the sort of problems. These can be poor. They can be downright awful. It can present both physical and cognitive problems being able to understand what to do.

You get faced with the most impossible suggestions that you have to make a decision on, very often in the interfacing. For some people it can be expensive - we are talking about considerable amounts of money for some people - and it can be very scary and strange, particularly if you are not these children who have grown up with these products, and many older people today obviously have not done that.

I am going to talk a bit about ergonomics and technology, so you know where I am coming from, and what users want from broadband. What are those insurmountable barriers we have talked about, and what are we going to do about them? I don't want to end on a negative note. I want to talk about what I consider to be the big issues and a little bit about the future. I hope that the rest of the day will be about the future rather than about any sort of problems.

5.2 Ergonomics and Technology

Ergonomics is about taking account of human needs, requirements and limitations in the design of products, equipment and environments, Fig 5.2. The aim is to ensure that things are easier to use, safe to use, efficient, acceptable, and so on. It is essential to take account of all sizes and shapes of people, particularly the vulnerable sections of society. We are not just talking about fit, able-bodied people. We are talking about children, elderly people, disabled people. We want to make sure they can use products efficiently and safely.

One of the things I like to think that ergonomics does is to provide a moderating force so we can get technology to work for us rather than us having to work at it, which is how it feels much of the time. This is the conspiracy against human memory which comes from Norman's "Psychology of everyday things". This idea of PIN numbers and passwords - they are kind of conspiring against us much of the time. Yes, we need security, but it can be quite difficult to achieve this.

Diagram showing the disability gap.

Fig 5.3 The disability gap

We have this disability gap, Fig 5.3. The important thing we are trying to do is to close it with various sorts of ICT products. The problem is that in fact digital divides are disabling people because they cannot get access to it. We are trying to improve the products such that they offset, if you like, the disabling conditions that people have.

So, if you want to have access to e-banking and other things, if they are only available this way, not locally, you can be seriously disabled and disadvantaged if you are not able to close this disability gap. We do not want to have people who are seriously disadvantaged because they cannot get online.

I like to think - well, I dont't like to think, but the situation is - that we are facing the technological haves and have-nots. Technology can offer so many opportunities to people, but how individuals use technology is very much dependent on a number of things, such as their previous experience. If you are one of these children who have grown up using technology throughout your life, you are going to be a very different person than somebody like my mother, for instance, who has never known technology and is faced with it later.

If you have more income, you are likely to be able to get people in to sort out the problems. If you cannot physically gain access, it does not matter if you can use it or not because, if you cannot get to it, it is not really there. There is a distinct possibility that the increasing amount of technology around today is actually, in and of itself, disabling for some people. They want to use it, but if they cannot get access to it then there is the social exclusion which can be fuelled by technology. That is not what we or the providers want.

The reality of technology is that it is ubiquitous, it is there, universally present, wherever we look, even when it is not really necessary, or at least it is not necessary to the extent sometimes that it is there so that it very often exceeds users` needs considerably.

Many functions tend to get included in products just because they can be, and we are all aware of the complexity of a lot of domestic products. Products no longer seem to be designed just to meet a basic need. They incorporate as many features as they possibly can and, as consumers, we fall for that most of the time. We do buy products that exceed our needs. We get this kind of perceived need that is created as a result.

We all have this idea that we want to record all the video programmes or TV programmes while we are away on holiday. We do not watch them but we need a video recorder that can be pre-programmed. We need a cooker that we can pre-programme to cook our dinner while we are out, but people often do not use it. We are all victims of this technology but yet we also help to create that provision.
This is what someone has called "the Swiss army knife syndrome", Fig 5.4, where everything gets put on, and a lot more things than we actually want.

The 'Swiss-Army-Knife Syndrome': We need terminals and services that are simple-to-use, but industry keeps on adding unwanted functions

Fig 5.4 The Swiss-Army-Knife Syndrome

I found a nice site from Telenor in Norway with a downloadable report (www.telenor.com/telektronikk/volumes/index.php?page=overview&id1=22&select=all about people with special needs as the well-educated, affluent, physically fit young males who require all the latest functions on their laptops, PDAs and mobiles, et cetera. People with ordinary needs are all the others: the ones with the children, older and disabled people, who don't want special functions. They need terminals that are simple to use, efficient and safe. We dont't have special needs. If you take that away with you, that would be a good thing! We are not the ones with special needs, Fig 5.5.

'People with special needs' are the well educated, affluent, physically fit young males who require all the latest functions in their lap-tops, PDAs and mobiles, such as MP3, GPRS, WAP, GPS, camera, radio, video, DVD, games, etc. etc.

People with ordinary needs are all the others, also children, older and disabled people, who do not want special functions. They need terminals that are simple-to-use, efficient and safe, but industry keeps adding new functions - the 'Swiss-Army-Knife syndrome'.

5.5 Peoples needs?

What do people want to use broadband for? They want it for simple daily living activities, daily home activities. They want it to help with transport, communication, commerce and entertainment. We have heard about Telecare. We can remind people to take medication. We can monitor their health situations so that people who formerly had to go into hospital on a regular basis to have blood pressure taken can have it done remotely. It improves quality of life.

Transport. Finding information about public transport makes life so much easier if you know where to catch a bus, where it goes, what time, how it interfaces and interchanges with other transport. It is wonderful in terms of providing information.

Communication. It is just wonderful. We heard earlier about the "silver surfers". In the States, which I suspect is perhaps a little different from the UK, the over 55s spend more time online at a session than any other single group, and they are communicating. They are e-mailing grandchildren, and they are there communicating. It is a wonderful thing.

Commerce. We buy more and more materials over the Internet.

Entertainment. These are what people want broadband for. What do they want it to do for them? Interestingly, these ideas are taken from the technology foresight work that I was involved with when we were looking at the age shift. I think these are still things that people want broadband to facilitate.

They want active, healthy living and inclusion. Stimulation, both physical and cognitive. They want flexibility to accommodate changes brought about by their ageing or their disability. They want independence through choice and control, and social interaction through family, friends, neighbourhood and the wider communities. Broadband can bring people all of these things provided they can get access to it.

What are those barriers that I talked about? They are personal factors - things like ageing. They are also technological factors. There is complexity. Society really can severely handicap people and deprive them of their basic human rights if they cannot get access to these wonderful things. The right to work, education and information, and so on.

It should be self-evident that the people who are providing broadband services should actually be the ones who make it accessible, and we have heard really good examples. Sadly, there are bad examples out there. BT sound as if they are doing wonderful things. Congratulations.

In terms of ageing, what are the barriers, Fig 5.6?

Fig 5.6 Ageing - Consequences for technology

Simple things like physical movement, strength, slower reaction, not having to double-click on things. It can be quite a problem for older people. Eyesight and hearing, decision making, susceptibility to stress and judgment. These are all things that tend to deteriorate as we age. We need to take them into account.

What do we get? We get less than helpful help screens.

Picture of a typical small screen.

Fig 5.6 Typical small screen

This is on a small screen, Fig 5.6, not broadband, but it is the sort of thing you get. We get so-called simple interfaces!

Picture of a simple interface?

Fig 5.7 A simple interface?

I have inherited one like this from my partner, Fig 5.7, and I have not a clue how to use it, but it is a simple interface! It is not what we want.

Picture showing 3 typical interfaces.

Fig 5.8 Typical interfaces

These were interfaces (Fig 5.8) we found when we did some work with the Next Wave Technology Programme looking at Smart Homes around the country aimed at people with disabilities and older people. There is an incredible variety of interfaces people have to learn to use.

Moving on to the web, I found a very good report from the Disability Rights Commission, (The Web. Access and inclusion for disabled people downloadable from
www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf) which was looking at access and inclusion for disabled people. I would commend this to you. In this, Bert Massie in the introduction essentially says that, "In the short time that the worldwide web has been around with its global reach and versatility, it has had a huge impact on the way we live, work and study. Its potential for contributing to the delivery of genuinely inclusive society must be realised to the full. This formal investigation is an important step towards the goal."

Sadly, what they found was that, in fact, he says, "If disability discrimination is indeed a function of the relationship between sensory, physical or mental impairment and an unaccommodating environment, the web presents an aspect of that environment that could, with relatively modest expense and reasonable forethought, be made more accommodating than at present." It still is not in many ways.

You still get faced with things like this, Fig 5.9.

Picture of a typical webpage.

Fig 5.9 Typical webpage

This is what I get when I go on to the Internet. I am just thinking, "I dont't know what to do with a lot of these messages." I find them quite alarming, and very often you have a choice that says "OK", and I have no idea whether it is or not because the message is quite meaningless.

I have another one here that a colleague sent me, fig 5.10.

Picture of a webpage and a security alert message.

Fig 5.10 Security alert message

As soon as "Security Alert" comes up, you think, "Goodness, what is happening? This is something really serious" and it is presenting you with a risk. What do you do about it?

I was listening to BT colleagues who were talking about problems with multiple firewalls and things. Those guys were struggling. If they are struggling, how can I cope? It really is quite difficult.

The Disability Rights Commission report essentially says that most websites are inaccessible to many disabled people and fail to satisfy even the most basic standards. Compliance with guidelines, of which there are a lot around, and the use of automated tests are only the first steps towards accessibility. Sadly, quite a lot of people do rely on testing, and there is no substitute for involving disabled people themselves in design and testing. I would say "Hear hear" to that. I am thrilled to hear BT is doing just that, but it is not an acceptable situation really that the web is so inaccessible to people with disabilities.

Let us become more positive. What are we going to do to ensure a more successful use of broadband for people? We have heard something about applying design-for-all principles. Developing appropriate assistive technologies, using guidelines where we can find them. Meeting real needs. I would emphasise the "real" needs, not artificially generated needs. Taking account of the mundane and involving users.

The design-for-all philosophy is summarised on the screen Fig 5.11.

The philosophy of Design for All is best summarised as "The design of products, services and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design".

Fig 5.11 "Design for All" definition

Very often, it is not designed for all; it is designed for most. Being realistic, that is probably what we are aiming for. We are trying to design for the maximum number of people. Sadly, that will not be everybody because it is not completely practical. There will always be people who are on the severe end of the disability spectrum who perhaps are not designed for, but let us hope that is a very small minority and we are designing for most of the population. Usually that helps the rest of the population as well. What is easy for people with visual impairment is easy for the rest of us. The busy screens do not facilitate anybody finding anything on a website.

From the Center for Universal Design- reported in: A Step Forward: Design for All

  1. Equitable Use: The design must be useful and marketable to any group of users.
  2. Flexibility in Use: The design must accommodate a wide range of individual preferences and abilities.
  3. Simple and Intuitive Use: The design must be easy to use and understand, regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, skills or concentration.
  4. Perceivable Information: The design must communicate necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user's sensory abilities.
  5. Tolerance for Error: The design must minimise hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions
  6. Low Physical Effort: The design must be usable efficiently and comfortably and with minimum fatigue.
  7. Size and Space for Approach and Use: Appropriate size and space must be provided for approach, reach, manipulation and use, regardless of the user's body size, posture, or mobility

Fig 5.12 Principles of Universal Design

We have the well-understood and renowned principles of universal design, which are the equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive use. They are not difficult concepts and come from the Centre for Universal Design in the States, Fig 5.12. It is not difficult.

The remaining four are perceivable information, tolerance for error (gosh, we all make errors), low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. They are not difficult things that we are asking for in many cases to get design for all.

We are talking about simple things, like availability of large icons, high-contrast screens. There will always be some people for whom we cannot design. That is when we started looking at assistive technologies, where we need to add on an item or a piece of equipment to a product which will actually make it accessible to those remaining people. It might be an off-the-shelf product, a modified or customised product. It increases people's use of devices and allows them to make use of the system. Quite simple things.

Picture of examples of good telephone keypad design.

Fig 5.13 Examples of good telephone keypad design

These were examples we found when we were doing the work on Smart housing, Fig 5.13. The phone on the left of the screen is for people with dementia to help them to contact their family by seeing photographs of the family, and obviously large buttons on the right of the screen.

Picture of the front cover of the Access-Ability publication.

Fig 5.14 Accessibility guideline

If we look at the guidelines, this document, Fig 5.14, is from John Gill at the RNIB. It is a superb document that gives a lot of guidelines. If a number of providers of broadband and other facilities were to look at it, it has a number of Smart House guidelines that I found very helpful, and also ICT equipment checklists for people to go through. I do not have time to go through it today, but I would commend this document to you.

What are these big (but mundane) issues, Fig 5.15 that we need to be aware of? We need to remember that products need to be user rather than technology driven. We heard a call at the beginning: "What is it that you want?" We need to tell BT and the other companies that what we want are simple, reliable systems.

The big (but mundane) issues

The big issues (2)

Fig 5.15 Current major issues

Are the infrastructures present to support the technology? People have to remain as the kind of fallback, and are they there to do that? There will always be people, like we heard from our colleagues from BT, who are going to help one another, and that is great. If you have not got a friend who is going to help you get over your problem, say of the firewall blocking, who is going to help you with that? There needs to be people to help you. That is not always just a help desk on the end of a phone.

Can the supply of the service be appropriately tailored to meet people's needs and personal circumstances? Who is going to pay for the installations? We have heard about the possibility that, if you have a requirement for bigger memory and stuff - I forget the technical terms - are you going to be disadvantaged because you do need more than other people? Who is going to pay for the maintenance and the support of the system?

We should be looking to social services. If it facilitates people staying in their homes longer, why is not money following it? That is a worldwide problem.

Flexibility of use needs to be balanced against niche products. Things need to remain flexible.

It is a very bright future with all this technology, as long as we make sure that these questions are answered. We have heard about the spending power of disabled people and the spending power of the grey pound. It is a major source of business income. It is sometimes surprising how little companies seem to want to part people from their money. With the products that are on offer, it almost seems as if they do not care about the grey pound. Older people and those with disabilities do have their own specific problems which need to be identified and understood by suppliers.

We need also to put long-term benefits against quick fixes. Again, we have heard that BT have their priorities, which is great, and those have to be sorted, but there is a tendency sometimes to go for a quick fix rather than a long-term solution to all these things.

It is very important that the quality of life is maintained for older and disabled people, because substituting technology for human beings is not frequently what they want. The two need to work in synergy. We need people to have technology, but not if it means there is no contact with people. It is not a substitute, it is an addition. This impending shift from product to service and back needs to be recognised.

Finishing then, just talking about the future, Fig 5.16, I think the future is very bright, as long as we ensure that technology addresses need. It is not the sexy things that technologists want, and very often that is the problem. It is hard to worry about security if you actually cannot get physical access to it.

We want to make sure that social division is not increased so that the digital divide does not actually increase the number of technological have-nots. There is a real possibility of creating second-class "poor" elderly or disabled, who are poor in terms of access to technology.

We need to make sure resources are not squandered at the expense of lower-tech solutions for the many. It is hard for businesses very often to see to invest in some of these more mundane things.

The future

Fig 5.16 What of the future?

I would emphasise that there is a real need for people to back up the system. At the end of the day, we do actually need people there to help us out with the problems we all experience. I am very lucky that my partner is an IT specialist. I doubt very much if I would have broadband at home at the moment if I was on my own because I would find it quite daunting and I think I am a reasonably intelligent human being. I can therefore understand how people feel.

Finally, I will leave you with a quote from Longfellow:

"Age is an opportunity no less than youth itself though in another dress"

Discussion

NEW SPEAKER: This mobile phone has a send button, which is different from the rest, and an on-off button that is also different from the rest. I do not particularly want a special "blind" phone, I just want a phone. I have a sense of touch, which is a step in the right direction. Is anything being done in the academic world to address the overall question of product design, and indeed website design as well?

MAGDALEN GALLEY: I think I can paraphrase the question. The gentleman was talking about having a mobile phone, which I think you said had a different send button and a different on-off button from others. He was asking whether work is being done within the academic field generally to look at design - for people with visual impairment were you thinking particularly?

NEW SPEAKER: In any area.

MAGDALEN GALLEY: There is a lot of work going on. I am no longer in academia, so I am not as up to date, but I would think there is a great deal of work going on. The whole issue of mobile phones is a real problem in trying to find one which does not have a lot of extra features. I bought myself a new one. I said, "I dont't particularly want one with a radio or a camera," but I would have ended up paying more to buy one which did not have one than to buy one which did. It is ludicrous; it is all technology-driven. I do not feel I have given you a very satisfactory answer because I cannot give you chapter and verse, I am afraid.

SCOTT MILNE: I am Scott Milne from Dundee University and I represent academia. Our department recently set off two courses in conjunction. The first was with the Art School at the University, and it was an interactive media design course. Because of our influence and our focus on accessible and usable technology, it is teaching artists and designers of multimedia content to think of the needs of people with disabilities or the older population.

The other course was called innovative product design, which was us in combination with one of the engineering schools. Again, because of our influence there, it is trying to push young designers to think more about the needs of all users rather than just themselves as they are designing things. Most technology tends to be designed by young, fully active, often male designers, and that is a trend we are trying to change.

MAGGIE ELLIS: I am a pro-technology person, and had Betamax before it ran out and have a digital box on my television. I am an iPod owner but I am not a broadband user. I am a high user of Internet with a rival provider to the one BT is talking about today.

We have heard a lot about what Internet can do today, and I think it is very important we do not confuse that with what broadband can do. I really need conviction that I should have to spend more of my very hard-earned money, and I suspect that more and more people, especially in the category we are supposed to be concentrating on today, are asking the same question. Why do I need to spend that extra money? What am I actually getting?

The answer that I have heard so far today is virtually nothing. In reality, we get security with our other providers and we get versatility with our other providers. The thing we do not get is speed. For many older people, speed is not a problem. Actually, it is totally the opposite. They want the whole thing slowed down! They want simplicity, which you talked about to a great extent, and they want ability. Those are the really important points.

I see a very wide range of people with disabilities, and they are still looking for the mobile phone they can actually get their less dexterous and slightly podgy fingers on, and the same with TV controls and everything else.

I really believe that everybody in this room today has got to put very high-pressure sales on the designers and manufacturers.

MAGDALEN GALLEY: I would agree with that. (There was a ripple of applause in the room.) In the work I was doing before I left university, we were looking at integrated services, which included things like safety and security. By that I mean personal safety, not Internet spamming and all that sort of stuff. I mean personal and home security. Support for people in their own homes, where broadband really does come into its own, has a kind of always-on monitoring service. At the moment, there are not the services to back this up.

We need to have people with broadband in order for all these interesting services to be available into the home, but the services are not there. It is a chicken and egg thing. People are not going to get broadband because they do not see the benefits, and the benefits are nit being developed because they have not got a market to sell them into. I do think that, once we start moving more into this kind of integrated service provision of entertainment and security and banking, people will need to have broadband in order to get maximum benefit.

However I take your point. At the moment, with what is on offer, it is hard to see why you would want it.

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Last updated: 02.10.2008    © Copyright reserved