[LINK] Smart Home Accessibility Guidelines

[Tom Worthington]

John Gill Technology has released "Smart Home Accessibility Guidelines": 
http://www.johngilltech.com/guidelines/smart_home.htm

There is an article on this "Guidelines Cover Accessibility For Smart 
Homes Of The Future" (E-Access Bulletin, February 28th, 2013): 
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=821

These recommendations suggest that ICT in the home can help the elderly 
and others with disabilities, but only if their needed are taken into 
consideration when designing the interfaces for the smart home. I 
suggest that voice and other hands-free controls would be useful for the 
population generally, as well as those with a disability. Designers of 
smart home controls and displays tend to make them too complex and hard 
to use and so an accessible design would benefit everyone.

However, controls and displays miss the point of a "smart home", which 
should anticipate needs and adjust, without having any explicit input 
from the occupants and any need for them to look at displays. Smart 
meters are an example of what is not a "smart" technology. Householders 
should not have to read the tariff from a meter and then manually adjust 
the appliances in their home: this should happen automatically. Smarter 
technology has existed for decades with off-peak electric hot water 
systems, which switch on automatically when tariffs are low.

Also homes can be designed for accessibility by using some very low 
tech, low cost techniques. More in my blog at: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2013/03/accessible-smart-home-guidelines.html


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/