Imagining the Future -enabling technology Feedback and Presentation Event. Glasgow, Friday 8 March 2013.

1. Imagining the Future - enabling technology
Feedback and Presentation Event
“Reviewing the
Scenarios”
Kevin Doughty
Co-Director, Centre for Usable Home Technologies
University of York and Newcastle University
Alliance Hub, Venlaw Building, Bath Street, Glasgow
Friday, 8th March, 2013

2. The List of Vignettes
1. Williams Johnson 11. Sandra Smith
2. Gillian McAndrew 12. Nora Black
3. George Brown 13. Elvis Roberts
4. Janice Wallace 14. Pauline Wilkinson
5. Grace McNulty 15. Alice Wilson.
6. Jeremy & Joanna Baxter 16. Elizabeth Cameron
7. Jennifer 17. Fiona Jones
8. Susan McKenzie 18. Geraldine Reynolds,
9. Jeremy Steele 19. Jacqueline Baxter.
10. Joyce Stewart 20. Jane Doe

3. Joyce Stewart
Joyce was married to John, her childhood sweetheart for
nearly 60 years until his death last year following heart
failure. They had a happy marriage despite having no
children and little money – she worked from time to time as
a school dinner lady but was unable to hold down a
position for any length of time because she was called on
to help her mother nurse her father over a 20 year period.
Her husband was a labourer for a local builder. He had
experienced the highs and lows of the building industry,
sometimes working long hours when there were contracts
to be fulfilled, but also being laid off for weeks on end
during the winter when building sites were effectively shut
down due to the poor weather.

4. They had lived from hand to mouth, sometimes struggling to
pay the rent on their council house, but always being prepared
to splash out on a sunshine holiday if they could raise the
deposit following a sustained period of work. When her
husband dies, she found out that his pension and life insurance
policy would barely cover the cost of his funeral and the marble
headstone that she had promised him. But at 78, she was a
good-looking woman with few outward signs of her age and a
desire to make the most of her life as a widow.
Joyce’s problem was that she had little formal education, no
qualifications and a basic retirement pension. She had little
experience of paying bills and finding the best deals though she
had plenty of practical experience of getting buy on a tight
budget. Yet, she also yearned to learn about new things, to
travel as much as possible, and to keep herself busy. She sees
her future as a blank sheet of paper and desperately needs
someone to show her how to fill it in with interesting ideas and
things that she can do to fill her days. She is fed up with

5. Sandra Smith
Sandra was born with Down’s Syndrome some 18 years ago to
middle class parents who were both over 40 when she was
born. She has always lived with her parents, who have no other
children, and has enjoyed a loving home and parents who dote
on her. Over the years, they have treated her to foreign holidays
and have bought her a number of pets including a horse which
she loves and rides several times a week.
For the past 3 years she has attended a college for people with
special needs which she has enjoyed and where she has
learned a number of skills. During the past 12 months they have
concentrating on preparing her for a world of employment
including the use of Information Technology and other digital
tools. She feels quite confident that she will be able to hold
down a job in either tourism or in the hospitality industry. She
has many friends in college with her and she enjoys spending

6. Three of Sandra’s friends are thinking of sharing a house, and have asked
Sandra to join them. However, she knows that her home circumstances are more
comfortable than those of her friends, and that her parents would miss her
terribly if she moved out. Meanwhile, she has been offered a job in museum in a
neighbouring town which would suit her down to the ground. The problem is that
she would have to take 2 buses to get there in the morning and to return home in
the evening. Her parents have suggested that they could be her personal taxi
drivers, but she has rejected this option because it would make her even more
dependent on them – and it would also damage their professional lives. She’d
like to have her own car and learn to drive it – but nobody takes her seriously.
In recent months, she has become close to a young man that she met in college.
They have been spending a lot more time together and away from their other
friends. She has realised that he really likes her and last week she accepted his
request to become his girlfriend. This has triggered thoughts of love, marriage
and children in her, which would all help to make her independent.
Therefore, she has decided that she would like to take on a tenancy of her
own, and close the museum where she has been offered a job.
Her parents are naturally wary of her plans and feel that she would be unable to
cope away from them. However, they do appreciate that she wants to do things
for herself and that one day she would have to manage on her own. They would
like some say in how arrangements are made to support her. They don’t know
about her boyfriend but accept that she is a nice girl who is sure to be attracted
to a young man at some stage of her life.

7. Other Scenarios?
• Digitally excluded
• Any others?