Utopia Project

HCI and the Older Population: UTOPIA workshop at British HCI

Dr Joy Goodman and Professor Stephen Brewster from the University of Glasgow are organising a workshop on older people and human-computer interaction at the British HCI conference in Leeds, which will take place on 7th September, 2004.

The deadline for position papers is the 7th of June.

For details please see Glasgow's HCI and the Older Population page.

In Search of Utopia

20th April 2004, Euroscot Centre, Edinburgh

The UTOPIA Project ran a day workshop in Edinburgh on ICT and older people.
Speakers from both industry and research contributed, including:

Mick Smith, Fujitsu Consulting

Jim McEwan, Scottish Power

Alan Fraser, the 21st Century Government Unit of the Scottish Executive

Professor Alan Newell, head of the UTOPIA Project

For full details please visit the workshop website where you can download the slides from the day.

Talking about technology: seminar series

The UTOPIA Project in collaboration with learndirect Scotland and Celebrate Age Network is running a series of seminars about communication skills, especially communicating with older people about technology.
The seminars are intended for research staff and students but anyone interested in attending is encouraged to contact UTOPIA staff.

Distinguished Lecture

Kevin Carey, the director of HumanITy and the UK representative on the EU e-Accessibility Expert Group, gave a Distinguished Lecture at the University of Dundee on Monday the 27th of October, 2003.

In the lecture, From Fashion to Demographics: Issues in ICT Accessibility for Disabled People, Mr Carey attributed the current excessive complexity of ICT design to the self-indulgence of young male designers, he said:

"I used to think that the upgrade was an economic conspiracy but now I think it is the fulfilment of a design urge which puts ICT in the realm of fashion rather than utility. Just as fashion designers are primarily interested in dressing young people even though there is more money in the fuller figure and expanding waistline of middle age, so the software designer is primarily thinking for himself (and it almost always is him) rather than for the market."

If you would like the full text of Mr Carey's lecture you can download Kevin Carey's Distinguished Lecture

Newsletters

We send out a newsletter to all people involved in our research to keep them up to date on our progress.

All four newsletters are available online:

issue 1 (august 2002)

issue 2 (november 2002)

issue 3 (may 2003)

issue 4 (summer 2003)

or you can download issue 2 , download issue 3 or download issue 4 as a Word document

If you would like to receive future newsletters please contact Paula Forbes .

UTOPIA INDUSTRY WORKSHOPS

Workshops for industry were held in Edinburgh and Dundee (November 2002) and in Glasgow and Aberdeen (March 2003).

We would like to thank everyone who attended, and especially the speakers at the workshops, particularly Mrs Isobel Lindsay whose talk on technology and older people was a tremendously popular part of the afternoons

The Chair of the Scottish Usability Forum, Tom McEwan, wrote a report on the Edinburgh workshop .