I wrote this short presentation for my first AHRC CDT research training meeting on October 11th 2017. AHRC is the Arts and Humanities Research Council (don't worry: I had to search the Internet too). CDT stands for Centre for Doctoral Training.
The presentation is at https://belenbarrospena.github.io/phd-CDT-11102017/#/
Below is the script I followed during the presentation.
Hi everybody.
My name is Belén. That's like Helen but with a B. I am from Spain: we all have weird names over there.
I've spent the past 10 years trying to build software that makes sense to the people who use it. That involved a lot of this type of thing: very detailed interface mockups and behaviour specifications. But also a lot of this: trying to get the end users involved in the process of designing the software.
In those years I've learnt that when users get involved in the making of software, that produces better software. And that I guess is the underlying theme of my PhD research, which will apply a very specific approach to design: the participatory one.
Participatory design is committed to ensure that those who will use information technologies have a say in the making of those technologies. That becomes particularly important when you are dealing with people whose opinions tend to go unheard, forgotten, because they are not in positions of power, or are somehow vulnerable. That includes people like those in this photograph: very young people (children) and older adults.
And if you want proof that the voice of young and older people goes unheard, you just need to look at technology. Most of the technology we use is designed for people like these. Young, fit, in the prime of life, with perfect eyesight, perfect hearing, perfect memory and amazing motor dexterity. And financial technology, the stuff we use to access and manage our money, is no exception. Things like ATMs, payment cards, telephone banking, online banking ... they are all designed for people like this.
They forget that all people like this, if they are lucky, will eventually become like this. Over time we lose our perfect eyesight, our perfect hearing, our perfect memory and our perfect mobility. But don't worry: over time we also become happier!
As we age, financial technology is no longer designed for us. It becomes hard to use ATMs, it becomes hard to use chip & PIN, apparently telephone banking becomes the hardest of all, and for many people online banking is also very, very daunting.
When everything fails, bank branches become a lifeline. Sadly, bank branches are disappearing at speed, and many older people no longer have a local branch they can easily go to.
All these combined puts older people at serious risk of what's called "financial exclusion". Effectively, they are at risk of being unable to access and manage their money by themselves.
Can you imagine not being able to access your own money? The money that you worked so hard all your life to save?
Our PhD research will try to make a positive contribution to this problem. Maybe we can use participatory design approaches to ensure that the needs and opinions of older people and their carers are listened to, and taken into account, when building financial services.
And I say "our" research because, luckily, I won't have to do this alone. I will have the help of my supervisors John Vines and Lars Erik Holmquist at Northumbria University. And we will be working in partnership with Santander Bank and their vulnerable customers team.