Starting the VICON project
Monday, 18 January 2010
Mark and Josh recently attended the kick-off meeting of a major new European project that NCBI are partners in. It's called "VICON". VICON is all about the development of virtual testing of consumer products and user interfaces. The needs of people with sensory or dexterity impairments are generally not considered when designing user interfaces (UIs) for mainstream consumer products. Also existing interfaces and controls rarely fulfill the accessibility requirements of users with visual, hearing, and dexterity impairments. VICON will focus mostly on those with mild to moderate age-related impairments (hearing reduction, macular degeneration, etc).
As the “user experience” is a given more attention by an increasing number of manufacturers - as they rightly indentify it as a way to improve the quality of their product line. Hence VICON aims to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of consumer products. The focus will be on consumer products (ICT and non-ICT products); these include ”infotainment” devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, TV and Radio, as well as white goods such as household appliances (fridges, cookers, etc.).
VICON will explore the entire design process of UIs of consumer products, from concept, to product and (particularly) UI specification, virtual testing and feedback from Virtual User Model prototypes. VICON aims to develop an advanced Virtual User Model (VUM) in a virtual prototyping environment that supports the specification, building, and evaluation of user interfaces - hardware and software - for controlling and interacting with consumer products.
The Virtual User Concept will be based upon testing the use of the VUM throughout the entire development process. Special focus lies on addressing real time interaction/accessibility needs of user groups with minor to moderate physical impairments. As such, Virtual User Profiles (which are a customisable library of virtual people) shall respond to new interaction paradigms in order to improve consumer products.
The other main partners in VICON include the University of Bremen (BIBA and TZI), Fraunhofer FIT, DORO, ARCELIK and RNID - Royal National Institute for the Deaf.