PhoneAbility

The Way Forward

Patrick Roe

           PROFESSOR PATRICK ROE: John Gill suggested I make a brief presentation at the seminar today, and then later on I saw the title "The Way Forward" and I thought, "Right!". It sounds very ambitious, so thank you for volunteering me, John.  

            What's behind this title? Basically, I am not going to come up with a magical recipe and forecast the future, or anything like that, but the idea was to try and find practical ways where we could maybe continue this forum, have other meetings, other workshops, decide or decide not to meet again, and decide if there are any incentives or desires amongst the participants today to carry on.  

            I am coming in as a sort of outsider to this particular area, in a sense, and people. The first thing I have picked up today is that there is a lot of incentive to share information facing the same kind of problems, whether it's in research or more applications, or testing, evaluating users.

            I think my general feeling in talking to people during the coffee breaks is that everyone was very keen to be here today, and there's also a lot of incentive to carry on this work and to find some kind of way forward of how that might happen. So, that's sort of the objective of what I am going to try to sum up today.  

            I am from the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in the French part of Switzerland. I have been chairing the COST 219ter actions, of which I will also say a few words later on in the presentation.  

            So, there are two possible outcomes. This is very simplistic. All projects continue to develop sort of in isolation, and they know the others exist but they just from time to time want to know what's going on, just to get their heads up and be aware of their environment. That's maybe very extreme. And then there could be an outcome from today that there is a desire to maybe have greater collaboration, maybe more frequent meetings, trying to analyse what would be useful, what could be exchanged.  

Of course, there are issues to do with secrecy. If you are developing new prototypes, new products, you don't really want to share that with potential rivals. That's well understood, but there may be other areas where pooling of knowledge and information is useful to everyone. That's the other point I wanted to make.  

I wanted to use about half of my time to go through my presentation, and then open up for a short discussion, hopefully before the meeting has to end at 4.30.

            So, possible incentives and benefits of greater collaboration. I think one particular point that I will come back to that's been mentioned today is critical mass. You have more and more people asking, for instance, about the issue of getting information and how are we actually going to get all these databases accessible. If you have more critical mass of people asking for this information, I think it does increase the chance of it becoming reality.  

            Also, there's probably a better chance of the different systems being developed being able to work together if you know at an early stage what's been developed and what the possibilities are, and maybe you could even integrate your particular system with another one. That's just worth mentioning.  

            I think the possibility of co-ordinating input into standardisation bodies is going to be very important. We heard Angelos Bekiaris say that ASK-IT were trying to have a de facto standard. Maybe at some stage, if it could be channelled through some agreement or organisation or umbrella body, whatever you like to call it, and input the formal standards, this could be interesting. Also to make sure that all the different developments are compatible and using compatible standards.  

            Finally, the pooling of knowledge regarding user needs. I think we have already heard a couple of questions that came up where people have wanted to ask another speaker and where this has proved very useful.  

            One thing that just springs to mind was trying to get users to input information into a system. The RERC had difficulties in getting users to do that, and I believe MAPPED are just setting out to do such a task, so there is a good example of where common shared experience could be very useful.  

            I have tried here to bring up one or two critical issues that have been raised today. There have been many. Firstly, I think human factors are a real challenge. This has been highlighted. How to have a human user interface that is easy to use. You don't need a manual, you just intuitively know how to use it.  

This is still a real challenge today, and I think this is an area where a lot of the people who have made presentations today have a lot to contribute, both on the human factors side and also what is possible technologically.  

            Another point is achieving communication delivery in intuitive form, so both the user needs but also the interface are closely linked. Co-ordination of user needs. I think a lot of people in different research projects must be making assumptions on their users and user needs. Again, maybe some projects feel that they have greater knowledge in this area and others actually could benefit from also sharing. The other point that was raised by a question is how to gather all the required information. I think this is a critical issue.  

            There are a couple of thoughts I would just like to put in there about this particular point. If we had asked many years ago before the Internet was developed, "How is all this information ever going to be on the Internet?", it is just unthinkable. Of course, what happened is that everybody has an incentive. Every business wants to be on the Internet because they have an incentive to put that information there.  

            One of the solutions could be to think of ways where people would have incentives to actually provide that information themselves. I know that we have had examples of chambers of commerce providing this information, or companies setting it up and monitoring information, and then selling it.   These are obviously islands or solutions that have sprung up, but I doubt whether it will be universal if we just rely on market forces, so to speak. We won't have a complete solution.  

            The other example that sprang to mind is, if you have roadworks and suddenly there is a hole in the road, who is going to actually make sure that information is immediately accessible?  I am sure that, in most countries, if you have roadworks, you have certain obligations to alert people in general, and maybe you should additionally have an obligation to inform these databases of that. So, at some stage, we are going to have some kind of regulation that puts obligations on people to provide that information.  

I think that will be part of the picture as well. It might seem like an impossible task, and it's certainly not to be underestimated, but I think it's one of the critical issues raised today. Again, I think this is an issue where sharing all the experience from the people in this room would help find solutions for this.  

            So, what role could COST 219ter play? This may be familiar to some of you, so my apologies if you are familiar with this. Others have had questions during coffee breaks. Before answering this question, I will spend five minutes on explaining what COST is, in general, and what COST 219ter is about. It is a four-year action on accessibility for all to services and terminals for next generation networks. We are due to end in January of next year and have asked for a two-year extension.  

            COST means European CO-operation in the Field of Scientific and Technological Research. It was set up in 1971, so it's more than 30 years old, and originally had 17 scientific and technical domains, including forestry, physics and health issues. It is very wide-ranging. It is not just telecommunications; it goes to many different fields. It has recently been restructured into nine domains, so this is quite recent news. It was restructured in November 2005, so any new applications for new actions have to fall within the new structure.  

            Participation: there are 34 European countries plus one member state. It is open to countries outside Europe, where you can have representatives representing their organisation rather than their country, and the European Commission can also be a partner. So, it's wider than just the European Union, and has been for many years. This slide shows an example of the number of actions that were running at the end of 2004 under the old structure, when there were about 200 COST actions.  

That is still true today, with about 200 different actions.  

            People often ask me, "Why COST 219 and 219ter?" There is no mystery or magic in the number. We were the 19th action proposed under our particular domain. We have had two renewals and, because 219 was known, we kept the number and just added bis and now ter. There's no more mystery than that.  

            I will go through the new domains quickly. The first six I just want to pass over. The ones relevant to us are the information and communication technologies, now under ICT technologies, and this is what COST 219 action falls under. It is also linked to individuals, society, culture and health. This was a new area for which they wanted, let's say, a new name anyway, where they wanted to put added focus, so I am flagging that up. There may be possibilities for asking for new actions.  

            There is a new process where they will be basically choosing 50 new COST actions every year. If there is a public proposal, you write a proposal of 300 or 500 words, and they will select 50 every year in all the different areas. So, that's possible. I will give you where the information is at the end on the general COST site.  

            The aim of COST 219ter is to ensure disabled and elderly people are able to share in the benefits of next generation networks and services, so it's a very general aim. To achieve this, we have been working in five different areas. One thing I should mention here is we don't have huge resources for carrying out research. We have very little funding for research within COST.   The only possibility is short-term scientific missions, which are typically three or four weeks, with one researcher going to another researcher's institution, so it is very limited. We have to rely on other framework projects carrying out the research, so we are more an umbrella network type of structure.  

            We have had input into standards over the years, collaborating closely with standardisation bodies, so that's one area where we have been quite active. Legislation, equally, we have followed closely, and we participate both at a national and international level.  

            We have produced several guidelines over the years, bringing together all the experts we have to produce those guidelines. Last but not least, publications, in which today's Chairman, John Gill, has been very instrumental and had a huge part to play over the years of COST 219ter, and COST 219 publications in general.  

            Just to understand the structure, because it might give you an idea of what the possibilities are, basically, every decision that COST 219 takes, it is the management committee that decides. It has to be the management committee that agrees. We are quite independent as a management committee. We have 19 countries within COST 219ter and that is where the decisions are taken.  

Then we can decide to set up different working groups. We currently have four. We are looking into information collation, which is just a general management of information working group. In working group 2 we have been writing scenarios, and trying to look at accessibility of emerging information technologies and future scenarios of use.  

Working group 3 has been looking at different evaluation and assessment processes and procedures, so it's titled Testing for Accessibility. All the projects here must at some stage assess and evaluate their systems, and I imagine there will be some system of evaluating. There may be a common interest to try and have comparable test procedures. That is just another thought that came to me today. We are also looking at the area of smart houses. 

We always have the possibility of having a new working group. If it was felt, for example, that there should be one on location based services, this is something we would put to the management committee and devote some effort to help any co-ordination that was needed. I am just flagging that up as one possibility.  

            PhoneAbility is what they called the old UK reference group, and other countries have such reference groups, so there is also the possibility of having co-ordination at this level as well.  

            The strengths and weaknesses of the COST structure which  I would highlight are that you have at your disposal, or you have access to, a network of experts from different fields, interdisciplinary, with a long track record in this area. That can be very precious if you need to do any work in this area of co-ordination, knowing what`s going on and creating critical mass.  

            It has proved in the past to be a very useful platform to bring different players together and co-ordinate research. You always need a platform to bring industry and users together in a non-confrontational way, and the benefit of information over the years has proved an extremely useful platform for this. This has been one of the benefits of COST 219, to be a "neutral" platform, if I can use that word.  

            Publications raise awareness. Publications has been one of its strengths. That is something we do have a budget for, and can do.  

One of the weaknesses I have highlighted is the lack of funding for research. We cannot expect COST to have huge resources when it comes to actual research, so that is to do away with any such expectation. Research is not the objective of COST; it is more highlighting where the areas of research are needed.  

For instance, out of the original COST 219 action, the framework programme TIDE was formed because it was identified there was a need for research in this area. If we suddenly flagged up we should be looking into Smartdust and Smartpaint, we might have some influence in changing the research agenda in the next five or ten years, or at least have some input into it.  

            So what role could we realistically play? We could certainly co-ordinate input into standardisation bodies. That is something we could do, and decide to devote more attention if it was needed. We could organise joint workshops, which is well within our scope. We could provide input regarding scenarios of use and evaluation protocols. What I mean is the work we have done in working group 2 and 3 is related to future scenarios of use, which could be helpful if you are trying to forecast how users might use different technology.  

Equally, we have been testing out an evaluation protocol with users, and there might be some useful information that could be taken from there.   That's another area where we could have something to provide. Of course, if there were any publications that you felt were desired in common, that is something we could also undertake if necessary.  

            So, at this stage, before giving further information about where you can find the information about COST and COST 219ter, I think it might be a good time over the next ten minutes to open it up.  Before Dr  Bekiaris took his plane back to Italy today, he did say that, as Chairman of ASK-IT, he was very interested in continuing such a collaboration, maybe in having a kind of working group within COST 219, which could be a meeting once or twice a year, or having a workshop. On his part, he could see that ASK-IT would be very interested in continuing to share information on this kind of basis.  

Maybe I could open it up to the audience and some of the speakers, to see if there are any other remarks concerning that point.  

            JAN-INGVAR LINDSTROM:  Patrick, thank you very much for this excellent summary and looking to the future.  
I would like to add one thing to what you said were the critical issues of today. We haven;t talked very much today about ethics and integrity. I didn`t deal with it myself either, although I have touched on the subject in my report. I think it's important. 

It is a specific area when we talk about navigation and orientation devices, where there is a lot of information, and it follows that we are aware that we are touching very sensitive matters when it comes to integrity. It is important that all projects really are oriented when it comes to legislation in respective countries, so that our best aims are not changed to something worse in that we cause problems for the people we are working for.  

            PROFESSOR PATRICK ROE:   Thank you. Yes. That is a very valid point that we shall definitely add.  

            NEW SPEAKER:   I have several things to say really. Some are just statements, and a couple of questions. First of all, I would like to say, for the people who are talking about getting disabled users of the services to input information for them, this is not very likely to happen, in all honesty.  

            I have worked for a disabled information service for 12 years, and we had the facility for people to respond to our website and add extra information, asking for tourist attractions. It was very rare that people did input anything. We tried to encourage people, but we didn't get a lot of response in that way.  

            I am not totally convinced of the level of knowledge of the speakers today on disability issues, and I would like to recommend some sort of think-tank of disabled consultants really, so that people can refer to them and get some depth of information that is relevant to what has been discussed today.  

            Not mentioned at all today was the Olympics. I would have been interested to see if any of this technology or anything that's been spoken about is being aimed at the Olympics, or if there has been any contact made at all, because it's a lovely environment to start with some of these projects.  

            I am very concerned, as an environmental issue, inasmuch as the RNIB produce an excellent guide about tactile surfaces, but these recommendations in the guide are not always adhered to, so I am very concerned about conflicting information if people are getting one piece of information through the services we have discussed today, and something else through a tactile surface or some other environmental means. I think conflicting information is a major concern.  

            My last point is that most of what we appear to have talked about today has been about an outdoor environment, and it has been commerce-driven. Before I came here today, I spoke with quite a few disabled friends, specifically blind and people with visual impairments, and the main thing they were all concerned about was the tube system.  

This was based on yesterday particularly, when people were not getting information, or correct information, about the cuts in services on the tube yesterday. So, my question is about services like tube systems, transport hubs and instant information, and a concern really that organisations like Transport for London aren't going to pay you to do it.

            PROFESSOR PATRICK ROE:  I think most of the points were statements. The reason I brought up the issue of pooling the knowledge of user needs was very much with that motivation in mind. 

The last point is a very good one. We all need access to information about transport systems, which sometimes we cannot get as the general public, but it is even more critical that it should be accessible. That is why I was thinking it might actually be, in the end, some form of legislation which forces transport providers to legally have to provide accessible information. It might actually come down to that.  

            The UK, as I understand it, is one of the countries that has some legislation now, compared to other countries in Europe which haven't, so I don't know what the possibilities of using the DDA in the UK would be for that. It seems to me a very valid point. I am answering questions from everywhere here.  

            NEW SPEAKER:   It is true there is lots of conflicting information about ground surface indicators, and I suppose, for me, the best indicator or the best source has been the publications by the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, DIPTAC, on ground surface indicators. To me, that is the bible for ground surface indicators, much more than talking about tactile. It benefits a lot more people than just the blind, but also diabetics who have poor sensitivity to touch.

            You mentioned co-ordination of user needs, and just what it means to elderly persons and persons of different disabilities, but also I think we need to address wants. We have to address what people need, but also what they want. A group or a steering group, or some sort of survey that you could conduct, I think would be very, very powerful indeed, and I just wanted to add my support to that. That would be really good. Thank you.

            PROFESSOR PATRICK ROE:  This is the last slide, which flags up the final conference of COST 219ter, or the first phase of it at least, on 16th January 2007 in London. 

It just so happens we are having the conference here.  
It is under the title "Extending Horizons, Accessibility to Next Generation Networks". It will be held at the BT Centre in London and PhoneAbility are co-ordinating and organising this. The COST 219 ter website is: www.cost219.org.  

            There is more general information on the site about COST and how to apply for COST actions, and who is participating in which COST action. The website address is: COST.esf.org. It used to be run directly by the Commission and now it has been outsourced. It is the European Science Foundation which manages and runs COST actions. It is one change that happened a couple of years ago. That is it for me.  

            APPLAUSE

            JOHN GILL:   Thank you very much, Patrick. Which leaves us with the aspect of, if projects - either ones presented today, or ones who haven't presented today but people know of - are interested in collaboration or other sorts of exchange of information, how do we go forward?  I would suggest, in the short term, the best thing to do is to contact me by e-mail, or any of the other methods. I think you all have my e-mail address. You can get it from the COST 219 or PhoneAbility website, and I will pass it on round the room.  

            I would like to thank all the speakers today who have made this such an interesting and stimulating seminar.  

            I would also like to thank, in particular, Jean Gough, who has been slaving away rather hard! 

            APPLAUSE

            I would also like to thank particularly Linda Newson, who has been working extremely hard.  

            APPLAUSE

            Today she has been assisted by Katherine and Antoinette from our team.  

            APPLAUSE

            Finally, thank you all very much for coming. Thank you.  

            APPLAUSE

                                         

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