Testing a new digital channel for autistic people through a Technology Strategy Board funded feasibility study
In 2011, the team behind the technology now associated with 3DNovations took part in a funded feasibility study exploring how collaborative 3D environments could make public services more accessible to autistic people.
The project was supported through the Technology Strategy Board’s Digital Services for Growth competition. The Technology Strategy Board was subsequently renamed Innovate UK.
The competition funded 76 small and micro businesses to undertake three month feasibility studies addressing emerging opportunities in digital services. Projects could receive up to £25,000 and covered areas including cloud services, open data and the use of technology to improve public services.
The challenge
Public services were traditionally delivered through three principal channels: face to face contact, telephone services and websites or email.
The project examined whether those routes adequately met the needs of autistic people.
The team identified barriers relating to communication, accessibility, travel and the way conventional services were organised. It proposed that collaborative 3D environments could provide an additional digital channel through which people could access services, learn and interact with organisations remotely.
The central research question was therefore practical:
Could an interactive 3D environment provide a more accessible and cost effective way for public services to engage with autistic people?
The approach
The project did not simply propose the technology conceptually.
Demonstrator products were developed and tested with three public sector organisations.
The team worked collaboratively with those organisations to explore both the potential benefits and the practical barriers that might prevent adoption.
Importantly, the project team itself included substantial lived experience of autism. The Technology Strategy Board’s published project profile recorded that most of the project team were autistic and that, at the time, 80% of Hao2.eu’s staff had autistic spectrum conditions.
The employee perspective, 2011
Hao2.eu team members discuss their experiences at the national Adolescence to Adulthood with Autism conference in September 2011.
What the feasibility study tested
The work explored whether 3D digital environments could help organisations provide services remotely while retaining the sense of presence and interaction available in a physical environment.
Participants could interact within shared digital spaces rather than relying solely on conventional webpages, telephone conversations or physical appointments.
The study examined both technical and organisational questions, including how services could be delivered through these environments, what barriers existed to adoption and what further research would be required before wider deployment.
Findings
The feasibility study identified a number of potential benefits for both service users and organisations.
These included reduced expenditure associated with travel and premises, reduced time requirements, greater participation by people living in remote locations, more accessible employment and learning opportunities and opportunities for organisations to develop new services and markets.
The work also produced practical, relatively low cost approaches for overcoming some of the technical and organisational barriers identified during testing.
The study concluded that further research was justified, including longer term testing, larger participant samples and more detailed cost benefit analysis. It also identified the need for sector specific and disability specific technical development.
A foundation for later work
The project is important within the history of 3DNovations because many of the principles tested in 2011 subsequently became recurring elements of its work.
These included collaborative virtual environments, remote participation, accessible digital services, scenario based learning, inclusive design and the involvement of autistic people in the development of technology intended for autistic users.
Later projects applied these principles to employment support, education, research, health and other public service contexts.
The feasibility study therefore represents an early stage in a longer programme of research and development into how immersive and collaborative technologies can reduce barriers to participation.
Recognition through the Technology Strategy Board
The project was published in the Technology Strategy Board’s Collaboration Nation: Digital Services Feasibility Projects directory.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collaboration-nation-digital-services-2011
The directory was created to showcase businesses funded through the programme and to connect them with potential collaborators, investors and organisations interested in developing the technologies further.
The project appeared under the title:
People with autistic spectrum conditions making a world of difference
Project impact
The technologies used in immersive environments have changed considerably since 2011, but the service design questions examined by the project remain relevant.
Public services still need to consider whether the channels through which they deliver support are accessible to everyone.
The feasibility study demonstrated an approach in which new technology was developed alongside service providers and people with lived experience, with testing focused not simply on whether the technology worked but whether it could address genuine barriers to participation.
That approach continues to inform 3DNovations’ work today.
Historical note
This project predates the incorporation of the present 3DNovations Limited in Scotland.
It was undertaken by Hao2.eu Ltd, whose technology development, research and personnel form part of the history from which 3DNovations developed.