Using Virtual User Models in Ambient Assisted Living Environments

The aging population represents a great demographic change and poses challenges to product manufacturers, particularly regarding the design of products for ambient assisted environments. Developing products for ambient assisted environments means realizing products that are in line with the requirements of the largest possible group of users, including those people with physical impairments. . In order to meet this challenge, the involvement of human users has so far been an efficient approach. Yet, such ergonomics evaluation experiments that employ a versatility of user groups can be very time and cost-intensive. Therefore, virtual user models (VUM) have been proposed for supporting the early phases of the product development process, respectively the sketch, CAD, and evaluation phases. Generally, virtual user models can be seen as an abstract representation of the simulated behavior a human user, and their fields of applications are versatile. The presentation provides an overview of the use of virtual user models in product development nowadays while highlighting their benefits and shortcomings. Properties of a virtual user model for inclusive design are identified, and their potential is highlighted by illustrating how virtual user models can support the sketch, CAD, and evaluation phases for the development of products and user interfaces for ambient assisted environments.

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