Some approaches to representing the diverse range of capabilities within the population focus on representing those with severe losses in a sin-gle capability, such as vision or mobility. This approach follows the simplistic view that people are either able-bodied, or have a single severe capability limita-tion. This paper challenges this view using data from a population representative survey of the 2019 adult population in Germany. This survey asked participants whether they had any limitations in daily activities because of their vision, hearing, memory, concentration, hands, reach or mobility. Out of 1002 valid responses, 158 participants reported that something was ‘very limited’. However, 145 of these par-ticipants (92%) had a limitation in more than one capability category. Therefore, representing the diverse range of capabilities within the population necessarily requires describing people with co-occurring limitations. The full set of capabil-ity limitations for an individual is defined herein as their ‘capability fingerprint’. Within the German survey, the top 16 capability fingerprints represented 80% of the survey participants. Presenting the most prevalent capability fingerprints is advocated as a better approach for understanding the diversity of the population. These capability fingerprints could be used to develop population-representative personas, or to better understand the sample that took part in small-scale user research.

Visibility in user interfaces (UI) is a critical element of making a product usable. However, the visibility of modern user interfaces can be compromised in a number of distinct ways. Firstly, some user interface controls have no visible attributes at all, from a visibility perspective they are effectively ‘missing’. Secondly, if an element is present then it can be ‘missed’, thirdly, if it is seen it may be ‘misunderstood’ by the user. Previous work has seen the development of a model to represent this. This model is used to inform the development of an evaluation tool called vis-UI-lise that can be used to assess the visibility of user interfaces. It presents UI visibility as a series of 5 hurdles between the user and the interface that have to be overcome for a successful interaction. The output from this highlights to designers what the key issues are to help drive further development to improve usability.

Introduction The emergency physician in charge role has developed in many large EDs to assist with patient flow. We aimed to describe and classify the problem-solving actions that this role requires. Methods We interviewed senior emergency physicians and performed iterative, qualitative observations, using continuous reflective inquiry, in a single centre. We reviewed and classified these approaches by consensus. Results Nine different problem-solving approaches were identified. These are deflecting, front loading, placing, plucking, flooding, targeting, chasing, guiding and juggling. These are useful for training and developing our understanding of how to manage an ED. Conclusions Emergency physicians in charge have a number of problem-solving approaches that can be readily defined. We have described and categorised these. These results are potentially useful for developing decision support software.

Older users with limited technology prior experience represent an important user group, in part due to their increase in the population in developed countries. The authorship team collectively have decades of research experience as well as significant industrial experience as part of knowledge transfer, conducting user trials and designing for this user group. It can be difficult to effectively communicate the depth of difficulties that older users can experience with new technologies and new technology interfaces, particularly to clients in technology sectors. Technology adoption models explain the factors that are at play in the likelihood of a user adopting and persisting with a particular type of technology, however they do not depict the temporal aspect of this journey. In previous work the user journey experience was simplified to aid comprehension from a design opportunity perspective and elapsed time. From some initial positive feedback from knowledge transfer clients with this simplified learning diagram, this paper proposes a series of depictions using this as a basis for communicating more specific and nuanced older user experiences to corporate stakeholders, principally designers and engineers.

We live in a post-WIMP world. The traditional Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers of the PC graphical user interface are no longer present in many hand-held devices. There has been a dramatic rise in the use of smart phones in particular, with Apple selling their billionth iPhone in 2016. This trend in devices and the shift to touch interfaces has caused concern with regards to usability and has been described by some as a “usability crisis”. This alleged crisis is born out of a proliferation of product features combined with a trend towards minimalisation in user interface style. This means that user interface functions are potentially becoming less visible. The challenge is to try and quantify and understand what is happening with regards to UI visibility, which is deemed to be a critical component creating a usable interface. This paper demonstrates an approach to determining a “visibility score” for a product’s user interface. The approach is applied to the home screen of an iPhone. This produces a visibility score of less than 10% in other words over 90% of the functions available are not visible at the top level. Such a score needs to be treated with caution but can help inform the general debate as well as creating useful insights for the designers of products.

Dignity is a key value within healthcare. Technology is also recognized as being a fundamental part of healthcare delivery, but also a potential cause of dehumanization of the patient. Therefore, understanding how medical devices can be designed to help deliver dignity is important. This paper explores the role of empathy tools as a way of engendering empathy in engineers and designers to enable them to design for dignity. A framework is proposed that makes the link between empathy tools and outcomes of feelings of dignity. It represents a broad systems view that provides a structure for reviewing the evidence for the efficacy of empathy tools and also how dignity can be systematically understood for particular medical devices.

This paper describes the University of Cambridge, Engineering Design Centre's (EDC) case for inclusive design, based on 10 years of research, promotion and knowledge transfer. In summary, inclusive design applies an understanding of customer diversity to inform decisions throughout the development process, in order to better satisfy the needs of more people. Products that are more inclusive can reach a wider market, improve customer satisfaction and drive business success. The rapidly ageing population increases the importance of this approach. The case presented here has helped to convince BT, Nestlé and others to adopt an inclusive approach.

Inclusive design has unique challenges because it aims to improve usability for a wide range of users. This typically includes people with lower levels of ability, as well as mainstream users. This paper examines the effectiveness of two methods that are used in inclusive design: user trials and exclusion calculations (an inclusive design inspection method). A study examined three autoinjectors using both methods (n= 30 for the user trials). The usability issues identified by each method are compared and the effectiveness of the methods is discussed. The study found that each method identified different kinds of issues, all of which are important for inclusive design. We therefore conclude that a combination of methods should be used in inclusive design rather than relying on a single method. Recommendations are also given for how the individual methods can be used more effectively in this context.

This article offers evidence from a classroom-based research study in English secondary schools which developed an innovative approach to teaching in Design and Technology based on inclusive design (also known as universal design). The research evidence highlights how creative, problem-solving approaches in Design and Technology can be used to provide authentic, engaging learning experiences for students. This study, entitled 'Designing our Tomorrows', introduced secondary school teachers and students to the principles and practices of inclusive design through an intervention using specially designed resources. In this article, findings from the study's qualitative pre- and post-intervention interviews are presented to illustrate how this type of approach can stimulate students' creativity and understanding of design.

This paper reports on an innovative approach for teaching creativity in Design and Technology education based on the notions of authentic learning. Working with secondary schools in England and Ireland, the research team has been developing an intervention known as 'Designing Our Tomorrow' (DOT) which introduced students to the important principles of Inclusive Design (also known as Universal Design). Through interview and survey data, the team gained insights into students' responses to the DOT intervention and they found that students' creativity and empathy were enhanced following their engagement with the intervention materials.

This paper starts out with a discussion of the importance of user-centred design, outlining its history and current embodiment in national and international standards and considers its particular relevance in addressing the needs of ageing populations. The paper moves on to examine how the premise of user-centred design has been taken up in education and focuses on the specific example of user-centred approaches as part of the Design and Technology requirement of the English National Curriculum, taught in England's schools since 1989. The initial stage of the Designing our Tomorrow project presented in this paper was an investigation of the extent to which user-centred design was integrated in current teaching practice. Analysing baseline data collected from teachers and pupils at two state secondary schools the project team found that many of the tasks teachers planned for pupils did not provide opportunities to identify users' needs when solving design problems. Finally, the paper presents a discussion of the project's implications for pupils' learning and understanding of Design and Technology.

Touchscreen devices are often limited by the complexity of their user interface design. In the past, iterative design processes using representative user groups to test prototypes were the standard method for increasing the inclusivity of a given design, but cognitive modeling has potential to be an alternative to rigorous user testing. However, these modeling approaches currently have many limitations, some of which are based on the assumptions made in translating a User Interface (UI) into a definition file that cognitive modeling frameworks can process. This paper discusses these issues and postulates potential approaches to improvements to the translation procedure.

Users' initial perceptions of their competence are key motivational factors for further use. However, initial tasks on a mobile operating system (OS) require setup procedures, which are currently largely inconsistent, do not provide users with clear, visible and immediate feedback on their actions, and require significant adjustment time for first-time users. This paper reports on a study with ten users, carried out to better understand how both prior experience and initial interaction with two touchscreen mobile interfaces (Apple iOS and Google Android) affected setup task performance and motivation. The results show that the reactions to setup on mobile interfaces appear to be partially dependent on which device was experienced first. Initial experience with lower-complexity devices improves performance on higher-complexity devices, but not vice versa. Based on these results, the paper proposes six guidelines for designers to design more intuitive and motivating user interfaces (UI) for setup procedures. The preliminary results indicate that these guidelines can contribute to the design of more inclusive mobile platforms and further work to validate these findings is proposed.

This paper describes the case for inclusive design developed by the Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge. This is based on 10 years experience researching inclusive design and promoting it in industry. The approach is a pragmatic one, bridging from where many companies currently are to a more inclusive approach. This paper uses the starting point that 'it is normal to be different' with regards to a person's capabilities, in order to reframe the argument from a disability focus to one that examines population diversity as a whole. A practical commercial response to this diversity is described by representing capability variation using traditional market segments and personas. Finally different design responses are discussed that address the range of capabilities in the population.