Generalizability in Research with Cognitively Impaired Individuals

Introduction A major challenge in designing technology for users with cognitive impairments is achieving generalizable results. By design, controlled experiments—the gold standard of evaluation in HCI research—remove individual differences through statistical means. While this is appropriate in many situations, when working with special populations, individual differences are often very pronounced, and, generally, crucial to the success or failure of the design. Moreover, it has been noted that traditional user-centered design lacks the flexibility to accommodate user groups with large individual differences, resulting in a dearth of applicable design methodologies [7].