Service and Product Development PractiCo® Programme at Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences has developed a service concept, which aims at improving user involvement in the development of Assistive Technology (AT) devices and services.
To complement the service concept and to enhance the communication between AT developers and end users, a tool for assessing users' satisfaction with variety of AT, ITSE-Assessment Model, has been developed.
ITSE-Assessment Model is a questionnaire that can be used to assess AT from user's perspective, and it is divided into four dimensions. These dimensions are: A) Usability, B) Utility, C) Quality of Service and D) Costs. The questionnaire is a generic instrument, i.e. it can be used for the assessment of all kinds of AT devices and services.
In the development process of the tool (November 2007-December 2008) content validity of the instrument was discussed by a panel of AT experts. Information regarding the feasibility of the instrument was obtained by testing the questionnaire through interviewing AT users. Two testing procedures were organized, where the suitability of the questionnaire for the assessment of variety of AT devices and services was tested. The testing shows that the instrument is functional as the questions are understandable and relevant. According to the feedback from the end users, the potential of ITSE-Assessment Model lies in its examining manner as AT can be assessed very closely from four different dimensions.
ITSE-Assessment Model suits the service concept of PractiCo® Programme well due to its customer orientated style. The qualitative information obtained when using ITSE-Assessment Model is extremely valuable for the developers of AT and therefore the next step is to launch the model together with the partners of Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences by researching customer satisfaction with AT. In addition to this the questionnaire could be used for sharing information and experiences of AT devices and services by collecting an AT databank. This way information about different AT solutions and enterprises would be available for everyone, and moreover, benefits and lacks of AT would be openly shared for the benefit of AT users, developers and enterprises.