Requirements Gathering for an inclusive Digital Economy

这项研究旨在了解老年人的需求，因为它影响工作表现，以及为日益老龄化的劳动力设计适当的无障碍技术的概念挑战。数字经济要取得成功，其提供的服务必须真正具有包容性，而且鉴于人口趋势，老年工人能够轻松有效地使用这些服务尤为重要。目前许多商业软件的设计都没有考虑到老年员工的特点，因为老年员工的感觉、运动和认知能力下降，他们使用软件的能力不如年轻同事。这是效率低下的，而且会严重影响这一重要劳动力群体的士气。该项目是开发适合老龄化劳动力的指导方针和软件的第一阶段，从而确保所有人都能进入数字经济。将进行初步的需求收集工作，将年长工人的需求和愿望与年轻同事的需求和愿望进行比较。这将是一个三个中心的实验，要求收集在邓迪大学，IBM纽约和工人招募的迈阿密大学。这些中心在该领域拥有丰富的经验，并且是IBM开放合作研究项目的一部分，该项目旨在开发免费提供的软件，以满足老年工人的需求。这个实验是对IBM项目的补充。它将引出老年工作者的信息技术要求，并解决如何最好地将无障碍要求纳入标准软件的问题。它将汇集该领域的学术领导人，提供关于工人对当前和未来信息技术支持的态度的大量基本数据，并收集重要的跨文化和跨代数据，由于老年人感到不安全和无能，特别是如果问题涉及他们的就业，很难征求他们对当前信息技术的看法。与那些不仅可能有技术恐惧症，而且可能对未来技术的特征毫无概念的人讨论未来技术也是非常困难的。为了解决这些挑战，我们将使用一种方法，在邓迪大学开发，它使用戏剧专业人士的技能，以促进与工人团体的讨论。将专门编写简短（5至10分钟）的戏剧，以说明老年人与数字经济互动时可能出现的问题。剧院暂停怀疑的能力将通过引入道具和简单的模拟来说明尚不存在的技术。这些戏剧将由演员表演给年轻和年长的工人和混合的观众。随后将由一名训练有素的主持人使用戏剧介绍讨论时间。观众将被鼓励与演员（谁将留在未来的数字经济中的工人角色）互动，以解决技术和情感问题。专家将回答具体的技术问题。将鼓励观众讲述他们自己和他人的经历以及他们自己的希望和恐惧，并将要求对重要问题进行投票。这些讨论将被完整记录，并将提供有关工人偏好、希望和恐惧的定量数据，以及定性数据，包括说明听众个人经历的个人故事。这种方法被认为是非常成功的，从不同的群体，特别是当不同的议程是明显的敏感数据。使用经验丰富的专业编剧和演员，确保经验将提供适当的数据，以及成为一个愉快的经验，为参与者。

This research is aimed at understanding the needs of older adults as it impacts job performance, and the conceptual challenges in designing appropriate accessible technology for an increasingly ageing workforce. For the Digital Economy to be successful, it is vital that the services it offers are truly inclusive, and, given the demographic trends, it is particularly important that they are easily and effectively used by older workers. Much current business software is not designed to be sensitive to the characteristics of older workers who, because of reducing sensory, motor and cognitive performance, are less able to use software than their younger colleagues. This is inefficient and can significantly effect the morale of this important part of the workforce. This project is the first stage in developing guidelines and software which is appropriate for an ageing workforce, and thus to ensure that the Digital Economy will be accessible to all. An initial requirements gathering exercise will be conducted which compares the needs and wants of the older worker with those of their younger colleagues. This will be a three centre experiment with requirements gathering in Dundee University, IBM New York and workers recruited by the University of Miami. These Centres, have substantial experience in this field, and are part of an IBM Open Collaborative Research Project to develop software which will be freely available and which will address the needs of older workers. This experiment is complementary to the IBM project. It will elicit IT requirements for older workers and address the issue of how best to integrate accessibility requirements into standard software. It will bring together academic leaders in the field, provide a wealth of basic data concerning workers' attitudes to current and future IT support and capture important cross cultural, as well as cross generational data.Eliciting the views of older people on current information technology can be difficult because of feelings of insecurity and incompetence, particularly if the questions relate to their employment. It is also very difficult to facilitate a discussion on future technology with people who not only may be technophobic, but may have no concept of the characteristics of future technologies. To resolve these challenges we will use a methodology, developed at Dundee University, which uses the skills of theatre professionals to facilitate discussions with groups of workers. Short (5 to 10 minute) plays will be specially written to illustrate the issues which can arise when older people interact with the Digital Economy. The ability of theatre to suspend disbelief will be utilised by the introduction of props and simple simulations to illustrate technologies which do not yet exist. These plays will be performed by actors to groups of younger and older workers and mixed audiences. This will be followed by a trained facilitator using the plays to introduce discussion periods. The audience will be encouraged to interact with the actors (who will stay in role as workers within the Digital Economy of the future) to address both technical and emotional issue. Subject experts will respond to specific technical questions. The audience will be encouraged to relate their own and others experiences and their own hopes and fears, and will be asked to vote on important issues. These discussions will be fully recorded and will provide both quantitative data on workers preferences, hopes and fears, as well as qualitative data including individual stories which illustrate individual experiences from the audience. This approach has been found to be very successful in eliciting sensitive data from divergent groups, particularly when different agendas are manifest. The use of experienced professional scriptwriters and actors, ensure that the experience will provide appropriate data as well as being an enjoyable experience for the participants.