Research Themes
Independent living
Internationally, we live in an aging population. Increasing dependency ratios (the ratio of those typically not in the labour force to those typically in the labour force) mean that we need to rely on technology to support older people who, in the main, wish to remain in their own homes as long as possible. The inevitable pressures on already under funded care services mean that the human contact currently provided by human carers will continue to dwindle.
CUHTec research responds to these problems in two ways:
(i) In a time of increasing automation, we seek to understand the point of view of older people in order to ensure that the services provided meet the needs they see as most important. Too often technological development is driven by the needs of companies, care professionals and relatives who have somewhat different priorities.
Example: A project looking at the needs of 80 and 90 year olds when managing their finances
(ii) In the absence of paid help, we look for ways to reconnect older people with their relatives, and peers. Much of the communication technology that is used by younger people to build social networks and coordinate social activity could be adapted to this purpose.
See publications from Monk for more information on work on this theme.
Accessible technologies for disabled and elderly people
We take for granted the powerful tools exemplified by services such as Google, Amazon and Facebook but these are not accessible to all. People with problems seeing are particularly disadvantaged.
CUHTec research seeks to set out methods for measuring the accessibility of web sites and to find out how these problems can be minimised.
Example: EU4all is a European Commission funded project ensuring accessibility in higher education and lifelong learning for everyone by providing components and services that can be adopted by universities to improve their offering and make it more accessible.
See publications from Petrie, Powers and Edwards for more information on work on this theme.
The experience of playing videogames
What are the critical elements of experience when you are playing a video game? How can we measure experience? How do innovations like being able to talk to other game players effect the experience?
We like to think that CUHTec researchers were instrumental in the early promotion and development of experiential approaches to technology use. This emphasis continues in this strand of research which seeks to apply a quantitative experimental approach to this topic.
See publications from Monk and Cairns for more information on work on this theme.
