Considering elderly people and people with disabilities in R&D

A requirement for R&D projects within the Telematics Applications Programme of the European Commission's 4th Framework is to consider the needs of elderly and disabled people in the design of advanced technologies. But mainstream designers and developers often need advice, ibr example which impairment groups to consider in user requirements capture and evaluation, and guidelines and checklists to facilitate the design process. This paper describes the work of two projects in the Programme which are specifically providing such support: the INCLUDE project and the TELSCAN project. It provides an overview of these two projects and also describes the results of an initial survey conducted by INCLUDE on the needs oi telematics projects. Results suggest that, in many cases, telematics projects possess limited awareness of the needs of elderly and disabled users and a lack of understanding about the type of assistance that is required. An example of this is drawn from the experiences of the TELSCAN project.