ABSTRACT

In designing inclusive IT systems, the challenge is not simply to design a technical artefact or product, but also to consider a service as comprising a whole socio-technical system involving organisations, people and technology. Dundee University researchers acted as expert advisers to the company designers who were developing the software, and the experience of this project underlined a major barrier to software design for older people. Theatrical methods and actors have been used in the context of product design along with unscripted live drama to capture and understand design requirements for older adults. The Dundee based Foxtrot Theatre in Education Company had developed a version of 'Forum Theatre' and used these techniques extensively within professional training of communication skills. Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a discipline involving computer scientists, psychologists, social scientists and designers. The inclusive design of software and services is not a matter of designing for the maximum possible proportion of the general population.