Innovative Tangible User Interface as a mean for interacting telecommunications services

While modern telecommunications are becoming ever more useful and even necessary in everyday life, not all groups of people are equally capable of using them. Due to inevitable demographic changes the elderly are growing in number, yet they are not very well served by user interfaces for the various telecommunications tools. The prime target group for our proposed technology is people with cognitive and motor disabilities, whether due to age, illness or traumatic events. They require a user interface which enables them to make or redirect calls, create conferences, set forwarding and/or access different voice XML services - without the complexity of keyboards or menus with tree structures. The motivators behind this are: simplicity, accessibility, usability and efficiency - all within the scope of potential user groups and usage scenarios. The key enablers are Next Generation Network (NGN) open interfaces and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology as a part of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) family.