Paper Reading #2: Supporting Medical Communication with a Multimodal Surface Computer

References
Supporting Medical Communication with a Multimodal Surface Computer
Anne Marie Piper
Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Lab

Comments
Stephen Morrow
Derek Landini

Summary
This research tries to explore a different user interface that would be more beneficial to the healthcare business as it relates to older adults. The project is particularly interesting since it enables older adults to participate in healthcare consults in a more independent, efficient, and interactive manner. In addition to this system being beneficial to older adults, it could serve users with impairments.

For example, users with hearing impairments are helped by means of a shared speech interface where they can communicate with a traditional keyboard. The doctor can communicate back with the user by as usual with the difference being that the interface translates the speech into text. One of the most important aspects of this interface is that it allows users and doctors to organize information in such a way that it is more intuitive. While more traditional means of communication (such as pen, paper, x-rays) are static, the multimodal interface allows images and such to be edited without altering the original data. This interface also facilitates the organization of historic data by keeping track of conversations of patients and doctors.
In the long term, this project will have a big impact not only in the medical industry but other areas as well. The author describes in her conclusion how the maturation of this technology is essential. For example, a student could benefit greatly while trying to learn a foreign language by the means of text-based representations. This representations would be linked to the corresponding speech.

Discussion
While I agree that this research is important in terms of aiding the older adults, I am not convinced that the cost of performing it outweighs its benefits. I think that older adults have a tendency to reject new technologies, thus the interface makes little to no difference. Also, it seems that the research is tailored to a particular subject as opposed to the more general user experience. This is not to say that the technology is not useful, but I am more interested in interfaces that serve humanity in a broader term.