Empathy context
S04E24 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, has an aged scientist from the Kaelon II planet visiting the Enterprise. After he completes his work on the Enterprise, he is forced to return immediately. The crew is informed that he has to readily kill himself when he goes back. The custom in Kaelon II is that when a person turns 60, they kill themselves, surrounded by their friends and family. This scientist, Dr. Timcin, attempts to explain it:
“They (old people)had meant something, and they were forced to live beyond that into a time of meaning nothing, of knowing that they could only be the beneficiaries of younger people’s patience. We are no longer that cruel, Lwaxana” 1
They kill themselves so that they are remembered with dignity do not have to undergo the decline in bodily and mental capacities.
When he says that old people are only the beneficiaries of younger people’s patience , that strikes me as the core empathetic value I must adopt. To give them agency to live life with dignity at the end.
I must reiterate how I view disability and why I’ve chosen the elderly as my target group. Blindness and deafness in the elderly is compounded by: mental distress; decline in mental capacity; decreased mobility and a lack of social capital which is part of the feedback loop. I chose the elderly as they are also the nearest demographic that I can empathize with and have empathized with in-person.
What will these aids enable?
To reimagine traditionally physical board games into being digital multiplayer environments. Ludo, Snakes and Ladders and Pallanguzhi.
These environments will allow the mobility impaired to play at their own pace and the hybrid interfaces with every player would provide accessibility for them.
Possibilities include
- Players play on their own board with their own coins. The positions are recognised and transferred to the other player via the internet. This is to enable and encourage how people might be familiar with physical interfaces
- Players roll the dice, the dice is then recognised and
Scope
With this generation growing up with computation as an essential skill, there is also the possibility that we will require aids to use computers that accommodate our disabilities.
Board games as online games
These are existing concepts, nothing new here. The accessibility features will be the core contribution
Status
It is now nothing more than a simple proof of concept trained on images of a home made dice.