User Study of Video-Mediated Communication in the Domestic Environment With Intellectually Disabled Persons

This paper presents a user study of Video Mediated Communication (VMC) involving six persons with mild intellectual disabilities. It took place at the “comHOME”, a full-scale model of an “apartment of the future”, showing innovative architectural and technical design with regard to the integration of VMC into the domestic environment. The design concept of the apartment is based on the creation of private and public digital places in the home expressed both architecturally and technologically. Two different zones for VMC, “comZONES”, in the apartment were tested, the videoTORSO (a large screen set-up for informal everyday communication) and the workPLACE (a place for professional work tasks). The purpose of the study was, at an early design stage, to get a deeper understanding of how people use these two comZONES. The final discussion points out that the comZONES seem to be interpreted correctly and to function aptly in relationship to the participants of the study. Tentatively we might find an explanation in the fact that spatial recognition probably is a very fundamental human function, learned and trained for years, and thus, may be less significant with regard to the mental capacity of the individual. This might be even more true if the spatial design factors are still less abstract.