Solo: Interactive Task Guidance
Edmund LoPresti, Ned Kirsch, Richard Simpson, Debra Schreckenghost · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05) · doi:10.1145/1090785.1090824
Summary
This paper describes Solo, a cognitive orthosis being developed by AT Sciences, the University of Michigan, the University of Pittsburgh, and TRACLabs to help cognitively impaired clients and their caregivers manage daily activities. Solo builds on the earlier COGORTH system, which provided guidance through multi-step tasks and was shown to improve schedule adherence for people with cognitive disabilities in efficacy studies. Solo has four components: an Activity Assistant that guides the client through task instructions as they arise in the daily schedule; a Design Assistant that helps caregivers define task steps and build schedules; a Cognition Manager that builds schedules, generates and monitors instructions using a deliberative planner (Adversarial Planner) and reactive planner (Reactive Action Package System); and an Information Server that hosts the Cognition Manager. The system uses a distributed architecture where users connect to a central server, enabling delivery of prompts on any Internet-enabled device — desktop, handheld computer, or mobile phone. This architecture also supports telerehabilitation, allowing rehabilitation professionals or family members to remotely adjust schedules and monitor progress.
Key findings
Solo addresses a significant limitation of existing memory aids and cueing systems: most present only simple, one-step reminders (e.g., 'At 5:00, cook dinner'), while real activities involve multi-step sequences requiring sequential processing, contingency handling, and branching based on feedback. The Design Assistant uses a graphical interface requiring no prior task analysis skills, allowing caregivers to specify each step, the relationships between steps, and contingency steps for common errors. The Cognition Manager's Schedule Supervisor can automatically rearrange the schedule when tasks take longer than expected or are abandoned, providing this information to caregivers and clinicians for future planning. The Instruction Sequencer dynamically adjusts the sequence of steps based on client responses — if a step takes significantly longer than expected, the system re-prompts with alternative instructions, and if the user still does not indicate completion, the caregiver can be notified or the task abandoned. All interactions are logged for caregiver and clinician review. Clinical trials were underway at the time of publication to assess the effectiveness of the Cognition Manager and Activity Assistant, with usability trials planned with rehabilitation professionals for the Design Assistant.
Relevance
Solo represents an important advance in cognitive assistive technology by moving beyond simple reminder systems to provide intelligent, adaptive task guidance that can respond to the unpredictable nature of daily life for people with cognitive impairments. The distributed architecture was forward-thinking for 2005, anticipating the ubiquitous connected devices that are now commonplace. For accessibility practitioners, Solo illustrates several key design principles for cognitive AT: the importance of supporting multi-step rather than single-step tasks; the need for contingency planning built into the system; the value of adaptive sequencing that responds to user performance in real time; and the critical role of caregiver tools that do not require specialised training to use. The telerehabilitation capability — allowing remote monitoring and schedule adjustment — addresses the practical reality that people with cognitive disabilities often live in community settings far from their rehabilitation providers. The system's roots in space habitat life support control architecture (adapted from TRACLabs' work) demonstrate how technology transfer from other domains can benefit assistive technology development.
Tags: cognitive assistive technology · traumatic brain injury · cognitive disability · task guidance · scheduling · independent living · telerehabilitation · cognitive prosthetic