- Title
- A framework for designing ambient assisted living services for disabled individuals
- Creator
- Kyazze, Michael
- Subject
- Assistive computer technology
- Subject
- Computers and people with disabilities Self-help devices for people with disabilities People with disabilities -- Means of communication -- Technological innovations Communication devices for people with disabilities
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Doctoral
- Type
- PhD
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/31240
- Identifier
- vital:31347
- Description
- Physically disabled individuals face a number of challenges when carrying out their everyday activities such as moving around, communicating with others, and their personal care. One way of overcoming these challenges is by using personal assistants. An alternative is to enable independence through assistive technology. This research aimed to investigate how physically disabled individuals experience these challenges, and how assistive technology can enable them to be more independent. In order to achieve the goal of this research, existing literature was reviewed on disability, assisted living, and interaction techniques. The literature study on disability identified some of the challenges faced by disabled individuals in their daily lives. In order to contextualize these challenges, interview studies with eighteen disabled individuals, and twelve personal assistants were carried out in Kampala, Uganda and Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The participants from both Uganda and South Africa were limited to those living in urban areas. The Ugandan participants noted that, whereas technology may assist their daily lives, their most essential needs are basic disability support aids such as wheelchairs and better long canes. This was in contrast with the South African participants, who have access to basic disability support aids. The South African participants identified their key needs as controlling an electronic environment without assistance, e.g. house lights, using a mobile phone, and using a computer without assistance. The interviews narrowed down the scope to focus on individuals with quadriplegia, specifically individuals who have limited hand use, but can comfortably speak and move their heads, and make gestures such as head shake and nod. Literature on assisted living technologies and frameworks, provided the technical foundation for the research. The literature review of interaction techniques identified a number of possible ways in which individuals with quadriplegia can interact with technology. An appropriate set of interaction techniques, namely head shake and nod, voice, and facial feature tracking were identified. Evaluations of the interaction techniques excluded head shake and nod, because of an inconsistency in detecting an individual’s head pose in different lighting conditions, when using a Microsoft Kinect. Voice and facial feature tracking using a standard computer camera were identified as the most suitable interaction techniques for this study. A framework for designing assisted living software services was developed. The framework allows disability researchers and solution developers to understand the needs of a given disability group, and design relevant solutions. To demonstrate that the proposed framework iii | P a g e addresses the main aim of this research, a prototype was developed that enables users to control smart lights (Phillips hue), a Smart TV (Samsung), and carry out basic navigation and webbrowsing on a computer. Users could interact with the software using voice and facial feature commands. A usability study was carried out with fifteen physically disabled individuals in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The results of the evaluation study were highly positive. The successful evaluation of the prototype provided empirical evidence that the proposed framework does assist in the design of relevant and useful software services, to meet the unique needs of physically disabled individuals.
- Format
- xiii, 165 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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Collections
NMU School of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | MKyazze PhD Final.pdf | 8 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |