si-screen.eu http://www.si-screen.eu/ Latest news en si-screen.eu http://www.si-screen.eu/typo3conf/ext/tt_news/ext_icon.gif http://www.si-screen.eu/ 18 16 Latest news TYPO3 - get.content.right http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:58:00 +0200 SI-Screen / elisa project meeting in Munich http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/si_screen_elisa_project_meeting_in_munich.html From 9th to 10th May the final meeting of all partners of the EU research project Social Interaction Screen (SI-Screen) will take place in Munich, Germany. The main two topics of the meeting will be a review on the past three years of the project and an outlook into the exploitation of the project results.  i-com journal Vol.11 No. 3 – Special Issue on Ambient Assisted Living.]]> Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:58:00 +0200 Press notes released by IBV and ST http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/press_notes_released_by_ibv_and_st.html IBV works in a touch screen to make easier social interaction to the older personshttp://www.20minutos.es/noticia/977307/0/ The tablet allowing a better social interaction for the older persons is on its final phasehttp://www.aesad.org/index.php/the-news/104-la-tablet-que-permitira-la-interaccion-social-de-los-mayores-se-encuentra-en-su-fase-final http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/977307/0/
The tablet allowing a better social interaction for the older persons is on its final phase
http://www.aesad.org/index.php/the-news/104-la-tablet-que-permitira-la-interaccion-social-de-los-mayores-se-encuentra-en-su-fase-final ]]> Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:50:00 +0100 3rd Validation in Germany http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/3rd_validation_in_germany.html On Friday, March, 8th 2013, the kick-off meeting for the Elisa field test in Germany took place. For the following two weeks, ten elderly people will test the Elisa system in their own living environments. To this end each of them received a Samsung Galaxy 2 10.1 tablet with an individually adapted Elisa system. During the test, the participants can only use the Elisa system already installed into which a Skype hotline managed by Innovationsmanufaktur and VIOS Medien is integrated for support. The simulation is as real as possible since during preparations each participant indicated individual contact data (e-Mail and Skype) of relatives and/or friends. Additionally, the e-Mail address of a trusted person (Treffpunkt 55plus Club/Ute Vidal) was integrated into every Elisa address book which enables the Elisa team to continuously stay in contact with the participants. The duration of the test is two weeks. In the first week, the participants have to perform three tasks per day and write down their experiences in an evaluation sheet. The second week is free of tasks; the test persons can use the system freely and will thus gain more experience. At the end of the field test a focus group discussion with the participants will take place in order to analyze the pros and cons of the developed Elisa system. After the first five days, a first feedback emerges: Most of the test persons are really enthusiastic about the system and its possibilities. So far, any problem could easily be solved with the help of the hotline or via e-Mail. On Friday, March, 8th 2013, the kick-off meeting for the Elisa field test in Germany took place. For the following two weeks, ten elderly people will test the Elisa system in their own living environments. To this end each of them received a Samsung Galaxy 2 10.1 tablet with an individually adapted Elisa system. During the test, the participants can only use the Elisa system already installed into which a Skype hotline managed by Innovationsmanufaktur and VIOS Medien is integrated for support.

The simulation is as real as possible since during preparations each participant indicated individual contact data (e-Mail and Skype) of relatives and/or friends. Additionally, the e-Mail address of a trusted person (Treffpunkt 55plus Club/Ute Vidal) was integrated into every Elisa address book which enables the Elisa team to continuously stay in contact with the participants.

The duration of the test is two weeks. In the first week, the participants have to perform three tasks per day and write down their experiences in an evaluation sheet. The second week is free of tasks; the test persons can use the system freely and will thus gain more experience.

At the end of the field test a focus group discussion with the participants will take place in order to analyze the pros and cons of the developed Elisa system.

After the first five days, a first feedback emerges: Most of the test persons are really enthusiastic about the system and its possibilities. So far, any problem could easily be solved with the help of the hotline or via e-Mail.

]]> Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:47:00 +0100 Start of the field-test in Spain http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/start_of_the_field_test_in_spain.html On the 18th February 2013 the field-test of the third elisa prototype will start in Spain. The kick-off for the field-test in Germany will be on the 11th March 2013. This field-test forms an important mile-stone for the European research project Social Interaction Screen (SI-Screen). From the 18th February until the 1st March ten elderly people (60+) will test the elisa (elderly interaction and service assistant) tablet computer in their natural environment in Valencia. With elisa they can benefit from the advantages of the social web and communicate with their family and friends. Furthermore the elderly people may read articles according to their interests and discover activities in their near environment. The duration of the field-test are 12 days and it is split into two parts. During the first week the test persons have to complete three tasks each day, for example to (video) call family or friends or discover and share an interesting article or event. The second week of the field-test is free of specific tasks, the test-persons shall rather be able to use the elisa tablet computer freely in their private and public spaces (cafés, libraries, at home). In order to record their experiences, problems, duration of use and locations of use the elderly people are asked to fill in a prepared diary. Support is given with video tutorials and a help-line which can be either be be be reached via the tablet or landline. Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:13:00 +0100 Workshop at the 6th German AAL congress http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/workshop_at_the_6th_german_aal_congress.html The 6th German AAL congress 2013 in Berlin was about “quality of life in respect to the demographic and technological change”. In this context, the workshop WS02 discussed the “user-centered development of AAL-technologies and services: best practices for and from use”.
  • What are suitable approaches of user-centered development practices for AAL solutions and how to involve end-users?
  • What are advantages and disadvantages of evaluating AAL solutions in the laboratory or in the field? How to ensure we develop suitable solutions in respect to the target group?
  • How to integrate AAL solutions into everyday day life and at the workplace?
  • What are the opportunities and limits of involving the end-user?
    • In our presentation we introduced the SI-Screen project and explained how the end-user was involved in the development process of the three prototypes. We provided concrete examples of aspects of the final application that originated from end-user feedback. Special focus was put on challenges to develop for the needs of the target group as well as testing the third prototype in the field. An overview about the SI-Screen project is presented in the i-com journal Vol.11 No. 3 – Special Issue on Ambient Assisted Living. More information about the workshop and its results are available online.]]>     Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:06:00 +0100     i-com – SI-Screen article in the Special Issue on Ambient Assisted Living http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/i_com_si_screen_article_in_the_special_issue_on_ambient_assisted_living.html In December, the Oldenbourg Verlag published the “i-com” Special Issue on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). online]. We were invited to submit a contribution about the SI-Screen project to the Special Issue:
    • Social Interaction Screen. Making Social Networking Services Accessible for Elderly People.
      Martin Burkhard, Michael Koch, i-com Vol. 11, No. 3, December: 3–7. [.pdf]
    Additional authors of contributions to the Special Issue on AAL are Michael Prilla and Thomas Herrmann from the Ruhr-University Bochum; Federico Cabitza and Carla Simone from the  University Milano-Bicocca; Hilda Tellioglu, Lisa Ehrenstrasser and Wolfgang Spreicer from the University Wien; Asarnusch Rashid, Christian Reichelt, Natilie Röll and Tom Zentek from FZI Karlsruhe as well as the guest editors Steffen Budweg, Myriam Lewkowicz, Claudia Müller and Sandra Schering from the Universities Duisburg-Essen and Siegen.]]>     Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:59:00 +0100     SI-Screen / elisa project meeting in Barcelona http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/si_screen_elisa_project_meeting_in_barcelona.html From 13th to 16th December all partners of the EU research project Social Interaction Screen (SI-Screen) met in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting focused on the preparations for the final field-tests of the third elderly interaction & services assistants (elisa) prototype. The overall goal of the project is fostering social interaction of elderly people with their family and friends as well as encouraging them to take part in local activities. AAL Special Issue of the i-com magazine. Our pre-studies in Germany and Spain revealed that standard user interfaces of computers requiring respective technical skills form a technical barrier for elderly people. Because of this technical barrier our target group currently only has limited access to benefits of the Internet and the Social Web. We conducted a creative concept-finding workshop in order to find holistic solutions lowering the technical barrier for elderly people. Therefore we called the effectiveness of classic user interaction concepts as well as the qualification of hard- and software components into question.  In the end we decided for a novel concept of a dedicated tablet computer which focuses on fostering social interaction of elderly people by lowering the technical requirements. Based on our findings of the first prototype evaluation, we realized a first functional tablet prototype. This second prototype comprised of a newly designed hardware case and an interactive graphical user interface replacing the classic App desktop of common tablet computers. In our recent user studies in Germany and Spain, test participants were offered to select their favorite color-, form and material design variant for the hardware case of the tablet computer. An additional user study in Spain evaluated the usability of the interactive user interface and hardware design of the second prototype. The goal of this test was to find out if the elderly people can use the interactive graphical user interface independently, without assistance of another person. For the third and final prototype, we integrated dynamic content from various Social Networking Services by using the CommunityMashup solution developed at the CSCM Cooperation Systems Center Munich. CommunityMashup supports elderly elisa users to stay in contact with their family and friends via their preferred communication channel, including e-mail and Social Networks. The advantage for elderly people is that they are able to communicate with participants of Social Networking platforms whereas they do not require a membership. The technical administration of the device and the Social Web integration is opaque to the elderly person. An appointed person-of-trust can serve as a proxy and perform the administrative tasks by using the elisa Profile Admin UI website. These administrative tasks include the maintenance of contacts or adjusting system settings of the tablet computer. In case the elisa user encounters a problem he can contact his person-of-trust via elisa. And if no person-of-trust is available, an additional hotline with personal and technical support is available. Apart from the elisa Profile Admin UI, we introduced the elisa Channel UI website. The purpose of the elisa Channel UI is to support family and friends to give elderly elisa users access to their activity and content streams of their Social Networking Service (SNS). Available SNS include Social Networks like Facebook or Google+, photo sharing communities like Flickr and Picasa, personal blogs (WordPress) or website feeds (RSS).]]> Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:49:00 +0100 SI-Screen/elisa project meeting in Bolzano http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/si_screenelisa_project_meeting_in_bolzano.html From 23rd to 24th July 2012 all partners of the EU research project Social Interaction Screen (SI-Screen) meet in Bolzano/ Sarntal, Italy. The main topic of the project meeting are the final preparations for the test and evaluation of the second prototype of the elderly interaction & service assistant (elisa) in Germany and Spain. www.soziotech.org/si-screen-elderly-interaction-service-assistent/ (German only).]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:59:00 +0200 AAL-Workshop “Interaktiv. Sozial. Intergenerational?” at the „Mensch und Computer“ 2012 http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/aal_workshop_interaktiv_sozial_intergenerational_at_the_mensch_und_computer_2012.html On Sunday the 9th September the AAL Workshop “Interaktiv. Sozial. Intergenerational?” will take place at the „Mensch und Computer“ conference in Konstanz. As in previous year, we engage in the conference program by co-organizing a full day AAL workshop. http://www.kooperationssysteme.de/workshops/workshop-interaktiv-sozial-intergenerational-auf-der-mensch-und-computer-2012/ (German only)]]> Thu, 24 May 2012 14:09:00 +0200 Test of the first prototype in Munich http://www.si-screen.eu/en/news/details/article/test_of_the_first_prototype_in_munich.html From 2nd to 5th April the test of the first prototype was performed with ten elderly people at the Innovationsmanufaktur in Munich. The test-persons were selected according to our socio-technological typology by inviting two elderly representatives for each of the five personas of our target group. For these tests the project consortium developed a guideline for presenting the first prototype in individual interviews. Following these guidelines the participants also tested and evaluated the click-able prototype of the elisa user interface. Every interview had a duration of about 60 to 90 minutes and were conducted by the project partners VIOS Medien GmbH and the Innovationsmanufaktur GmbH. This evaluation focused on the overall design concepts offering two different layouts of the elisa User Interface. During the tests the elderly participants had to rate and prioritize their preferred layout concepts. Altogether the feedback of the evaluation was positive and several new ideas were generated which will be very useful for the future development of the product. For example even though the design did not pursue a specific layout structure, the majority participants intuitively assumed a consistent separation of the graphical user interface into three separate areas. In March, the same test was already conducted in Spain (Valencia and Barcelona). The combined findings in both countries will result in recommendations for the design and development of the upcoming second prototype. Wed, 23 May 2012 14:16:00 +0200