Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Representing older people: towards meaningful images of the user in design scenarios

  • Long Paper
  • Published:
Universal Access in the Information Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Designing for older people requires the consideration of a range of design problems, which may be related to difficult and sometimes highly personal matters. Issues such as fear, loneliness, dependency, and physical decline may be hard to observe or discuss in interviews. Pastiche scenarios and pastiche personae are techniques that employ characters to create a space for the discussion of new technological developments and user experience. This paper argues that the use of fictional characters can help to overcome restrictive notions of older people by disrupting designers’ prior assumptions. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences using pastiche techniques in two separate technology design projects that sought to address the needs of older people. In the first pastiche scenarios were developed by the designers of the system and used as discussion documents with users. In the second pastiche personae were used by groups of users themselves to generate scenarios which were scribed for later use by the design team. We explore how the use of fictional characters and settings can generate new ideas and undercut the potential in scenarios, for weak characterisation of “the user” to permit scenario writers to fit characters to technology rather than vice versa. To assist in future development of pastiche techniques in designing for older people, we provide an array of fictional older characters drawn from literary and popular culture.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Age Concern.: Concerned About Ageing? The Needs of Older People: Key Issues and Evidence. Age Concern England, London (2002)

  2. Alexander, I., Maiden, N. (eds.): Scenarios, Stories, Use Cases Through the Systems Development Life-cycle. Wiley, Chichester (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Austen, J.: Pride and Prejudice. Oxford University Press, London (1999)

  4. Bakhtin, M.M.: Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (1984)

  5. Bannon, L.: (1991) From human factors to human actors, In: Greenbaum, J., Kyng, M. (eds.): Design at Work: Design of Computer Systems, pp. 25–44, Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, Hillsdale

  6. Bell, G., Blythe, M., Sengers, P.: Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarisation and the Design of Domestic Technologies ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) Volume 12, Issue 2 (June 2005) ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) pp. 149–173 (2005)

  7. Bell, J.: Characterisation. In: Bell, J., Magrs, P. (eds.): The Creative Writing Coursebook. Macmillan, Basingstoke pp. 95–109 (2001)

  8. Benyon, D.R., Macaulay, C.: Scenario and the HCI-SE design problem. Interact. Comput. 14(4), 297–405 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Benyon, D., Macaulay, C.: A scenario-based design method for human-centred interaction design. In: Alexander, I., Maiden, N. (eds.) Scenarios, Stories, Use Cases Through the Systems Development Life-Cycle, pp. 211–235. Wiley, Chichester (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Blythe, M.: Pastiche Scenarios in More Funology Special Issue of Interactions (eds. Blythe Hassenzahl and Wright) (2004)

  11. Blythe, M., Monk, A.F.: Net Neighbours: adapting HCI methods to cross the digital divide. Interact. Comput. 17, 35–56 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Blythe, M., Monk, A., Doughty, K., Socially Dependable Design: The Challenge of Ageing Populations for HCI. Interact. Comput. (2005)

  13. Blythe, M., Wright, P.: Pastiche scenarios: fiction as a resource for experience centred design. Interact. Comput. 18(5), 1139–1164 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Blythe, M., Frohlich, D., Robinson, J., Stricevic, M.: The “Weegie” Installation: Audiophotography and Community Storytelling. Art Works, Proceedings of The First International Symposium on Culture, Creativity and Interaction Design, CCID 2006. LeonardoNet Network. HCI2006 Queen Mary’s London (2006a)

  15. Blythe, M., Manandhar, S., Wright, P., Gaver, B.: The Literary Fridge: Books of the Moment and Digital Fridge Poetry. Art Works, Proceedings of The First International Symposium on Culture, Creativity and Interaction Design, CCID 2006. LeonardoNet Network. HCI2006 Queen Mary’s London (2006b)

  16. Buchenau, Suri.: Experience Prototyping In proceedings of DIS 2000. ACM Press, New York (2000)

  17. Carroll, J.M.: Scenario-based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System Development. John Wiley & Sons, New York (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Carroll, J.M.: Five reasons for scenario-based design. Interact. Comput. 13, 43–60 (2000a)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Carroll, J.M.: Making Use: Scenario Based Design of Human Computer Interaction. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000b)

  20. Chavan, A. L.: Another culture, another method. In: HCII2005 Conference Proceedings (CD Rom), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (2005)

  21. Clifford, J., Marcus, G.E. (eds.): Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press, Berkeley (1986)

  22. Cohen, L.: Old age: cultural and critical perspectives. Anthropology 23, 137–58 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Coleman, R.: Living Longer: The New Context for Design. The Design Council (2001)

  24. Cooper, A.L.: The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High-tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Sams, Indianapolis (1999)

  25. Curry, R.G., Tinoco, M.T., Wardle, D.: The Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to Support Independent Living for Older and Disabled People. Department of Health, London (2002)

  26. Davis, M.: Theoretical Foundations for Experiential Systems Design. Proceedings of the 2003 ACM SIGMM Workshop on Experiential Telepresence, pp. 45–52 (2003)

  27. Dearden, A.: Design as conversation with digital materials. Des. Stud. 27(3), 399–421 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Dearden, A., Lauener, A., Slack, F., Roast, C., Cassidy, S.: Make it so! Jean-Luc Picard, Bart Simpson and the Design of e-Public Services. In: Jacucci, G., Kensing, F., Wagner, I., Blomberg, J (eds.): Proceedings of PDC 2006: Expanding Boundaries in Design, pp. 67–76. ACM Press (2006)

  29. Derrida.: Writing and Difference, Trans. Alan Bass. Routledge, London (2004)

  30. Dexter, C.: Last Bus to Woodstock (1975). Pan Crime

  31. Diaper, D.: Scenarios and task analysis Interact. Comput. 14(4), 379–395 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Dickens, C.: The Old Curiosity Shop. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1997)

  33. Dickens, C.: Great Expectations. Broadview Press, Peterborough (1998)

  34. Dickens, C.: A Christmas Carol. Broadview Press, Peterborough (2003)

  35. Dickens, C.: The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Broadview Press, Peterborough (2005)

  36. Dix, A., Finlay, J., Abowd, G., Beale, R.: Human Computer Interaction 2nd Edn, Prentice-Hall (1998)

  37. Djajadiningrat, J.P., Gaver, W.W., Frens, J.W.: Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters: Methods for Exploring Aesthetic Interactions Proceedings of the 2000 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM Press, pp. 66–71 (2000)

  38. Fielding, H.: Bridget Jones’s Diary. Picador, London (1996)

  39. Forlizzi, J., Ford, S.: The Building Blocks of Experience: An Early Framework for Interaction Designers. IDIS 2000 seminar. Communications of the ACM, pp. 419–423 (2000)

  40. Gaver, W., Beaver, J., Benford, S.: Ambiguity as a Resource for Design. CHI2003. (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Chi) Conference Proceedings 233–240 (2003)

  41. Grudin, J.: Why Persona’s Work: The Psychological Evidence. In: Pruitt, J., Adlin, T.: The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout the Product Design Cycle. Elsevier (2006)

  42. Help The Aged.: Older People and Fear of Crime: A report by the Help the Aged Policy Team. London Help The Aged (2002a)

  43. Healey, T., Ross, K.: Growing Old Invisibly: Older Viewers Talk Television. Media, Culture and Society, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 105–120. Sage Publication, London (2002)

  44. Hertzum, M.: Making use of scenarios: a field study of conceptual design. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 58(2), 215–239 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Jameson, F.: Archaelogies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and other Science Fictions. Verso, London (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  46. Jeavans, C.: Welcome to the Ageing Future. BBC news. 29 November 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4012797.stm (accessed 1.05.07) (2004)

  47. Lauener, A., Slack, F., Dearden, A., Roast, C., Yates, S., Cassidy, S.: Methodologies for working with older people: pastiche scenarios. Gerontechnology. 5(1), 16–28 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. McCarthy, J., Wright, P.: Technology as Experience. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)

  49. McCarthy, J., Wright, P.C.: Putting “felt-life” at the centre of human–computer interaction (HCI). Cogn. Technol. Work. 7.4, 262–271 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Macdonald, M.: A writer's life: Helen Dunmore (Filed: 21/09/2003). Daily Telegraph, London (2003)

  51. Mitchell, M.: Gone with the Wind. Macmillan, New York (1936)

  52. Mitnitski, A., Graham, J., Mogilner, A., Rockwood, K.: Frailty, fitness and late-life mortality in relation to chronological and biological age. BMC. Geriatr. 21, 1–8 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Newell, A.F., Morgan, M.E., Gregor, P., Carmichael, A.: Theatre as an Intermediary Between Users and CHI Designers, Proceedings of CHI 2006, pp.111–117. ACM Press (2006)

  54. Nielsen, L.: From User to Character: An Investigation into User-descriptions in Scenarios. In: Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2002). pp. 99–104. ACM Press (2002)

  55. Norman, D.A.: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York (2004)

  56. Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H.: Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction. Wiley, New York (2002)

  57. Redström, J.: Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design. Des. Stud. 27(1), 123–139 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  58. Richmond, R., Coffman, A. (eds.): The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to our Favourite Family. Harper perennial Library, New York (1997)

  59. Rosson, M.-B., Carroll, J.: Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufman, San Fransisco (2002)

  60. Russell, W.: Shirley Valentine: A play. Samuel French (1988)

  61. Schaffer, E.: The Bollywood Technique. Human Factors International, UI Design Newsletter, June 2002. Available from http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/jun02.asp#bollywood (last visited, 12 April 2007) (2002)

  62. Schon, D.A.: The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York (1983)

  63. Shklovsky, V.: Art as Technique, in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Modernism Through Poststructuralism. Edited and with Introductions by Robert Con Davis. Longman Press, New York 56 (1986)

  64. Shyba, Tam.: Developing character personas and scenarios vital steps in theatrical performance and HCI goal-directed design Creativity and Cognition Proceedings 2005, pp. 187–194 (2005)

  65. The Simpsons.: Burns, Baby Burns. Production code 4F05. US Airdate 17 Nov 1996

  66. The Simpsons.: Lisa The Vegetarian. Production code 3F03. US Airdate 15 Oct 1995

  67. The Simpsons.: Curse of the Flying Hellfish. Production code 3F19. US Airdate 28 April 1996

  68. The Simpsons.: Lisa’s First Word. Production code 9F08. US Airdate 3 Dec 1992

  69. The Simpsons.: Lisa versus Malibu Stacy. Production code 1F12. US Airdate 17 Feb 1994

  70. The Simpsons.: Bart the General. Production code 7G05. US Airdate 4 Feb 1990

  71. Thompson N.: Illness, Crisis, and Loss, vol. 12, no. 1. Baywood Publishing, USA (2004)

  72. Townsend, S.: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 Methuen, London (1982)

  73. Wodehouse, P.G.: My Man Jeeves, George Newnes (1919)

  74. Wright, P.C., McCarthy, J.: The value of the novel in designing for experience. In: Pirhonen, A., Isomäki, H., Roast, C., Saariluoma, P. (eds.) Future Interaction Design. pp. 9–30. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the constructive input we have received from: Peter Wright, Christopher Power, Helen Petrie, Ann Light, the editors of this special issue and the anonymous reviewers of the paper. We would like to thank all the participants in the DATES project and the Net Neighbours project who have contributed to the development of these ideas. This work was supported by the EPSRC research grant GR/S70326/01 Theory & method for experience-centred design and AHRC research grant AH/E507441/1, Practical design for social action.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK

    Mark Blythe

  2. Communication and Computing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, S1 1WB, UK

    Andy Dearden

Authors
  1. Mark Blythe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andy Dearden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Blythe.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Blythe, M., Dearden, A. Representing older people: towards meaningful images of the user in design scenarios. Univ Access Inf Soc 8, 21–32 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-008-0128-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-008-0128-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation