1. 1
Virtual User Concept for
Inclusive Design
of Consumer Products and
User Interfaces
Pierre T. Kirisci, University Bremen
BIK - Institute for Integrated Product
Development
2nd International Conference of AEGIS,
VICON Consortium
29.11.11 – 30.11.11, Brussels

2. Project partners
2
¤ Universität Bremen (Germany)
¤ Fraunhofer FIT (Germany)
¤ DORO AB (Sweden)
¤ ARCELIK (Turkey)
¤ RNID - Royal National Institute for
the Deaf (UK)
¤ NCBI - National Council for the
Blind of Ireland (Ireland)

3. Project figures
3
¤ Start 1.1.2010
¤ Duration: 30 months
¤ Budget: 3.14 mio. €
¤ Funding by the European commission: 2.4 mio. €
¤ Challenge 7. ICT for independent living, Inclusion &
Participatory governance
¤ Objective ICT-2009.7.2 Accessible and Assistive ICT
¤ Small or medium-scale focused research project
(STREP)

4. Introducing the Project - Motivation
4
¤ The needs of people with physical or sensory impairments are
generally not well considered when designing user interfaces (UIs)
for mainstream consumer products.
¤ It is difficult for mainstream manufacturers to have a detailed
understanding of these needs and how to design for them.
¤ The audience for VICON are people who
have age-related (mild to moderate)
impairments (age-related hearing loss,
macular degeneration, etc.) rather than
those with profound impairments.

5. Introducing the Project – Vision
5
¤ The VICON vision is to support the development of accessible
consumer products by creating a virtual user model for use in
design and evaluation.
¤ The virtual user model will accompany
the entire design process and support
the client throughout, so that the needs
of this audience are addressed at
every stage of the development
process:
¤ Sketch,
¤ Design,
¤ Evaluation.

6. Introducing the Project - Challenge
6
¤ Number of functions to be controlled by User
Interfaces has increased significantly

7. VICON Concept
(Virtual User Concept)
7
VIRTUAL WORLD
Specify
Virtual User Interact Design
Model (VUM)
Evaluate
FeedForward
Integrate
Inclusively Designed
Real-Time Consumer Products
Interact
Accessibility And User Interfaces
Needs
REAL WORLD

8. VICON Approach
8
¤ Supports Sketch phase by determining qualitative and quantitative user
interface recommendations
¤ Supports design phase by linking product designs to model
recommendations (design automation)
¤ Supports virtual evaluation and product tests by linking of context
elements to existing digital human models

9. 9
Thanks for listening!
Pierre Taner Kirisci
University Bremen
BIK - Institute for Integrated Product
Development
kir@biba.uni-bremen.de
www.vicon-project.eu
www.inclusiveproducts.eu
This research was conducted on behalf of the VICON project which is funded by the European
Commission.