The Problematic Activities Index (PAI)

The Problematic Activities Index or PAI is a simple, easy and economical way to evaluate universal designs' relative usability both within and across participants' impairment conditions. It provides results comparable to complex statistical analyses. The PAI score indicates how problematic an activity is on an scale from 0 to 100. The lower the score, the less problematic the activity.

The PAI is used by the Built Environment Research Study for analyzing participants’ survey responses. When responses are indexed using the PAI, a single number is calculated. The number or PAI score represents how problematic the performance of a specific activity is for people with specific impairment conditions. In this study, participants were asked to identify how often a condition with their arms/hands, legs/feet, back/neck, hearing, sight and/or cognition affects their ability to perform routine activities. Participants’ with similiar conditions are then grouped for analysis. A separate category was also created for participants who reported having no impairment conditions.

The significance of a PAI score is always relative. A score for one activity in one environment for one physical, sensory or cognitive condition depends on how it compares to the scores for other activities, environments, and/or conditions. For example, a relatively low PAI score for an activity in the presence of one design could still be higher than the PAI score for the same activity in the presence of a second design - indicating that the second design is less problematic and more effective at enabling equitable use.

PAI scores allow activities to be evaluated both within and across participants’ impairment conditions.This provides an understanding of who finds which activities problematic. When activities are paired with designs and evaluated, PAI scores provide an understanding of which designs work the best as well as which designs disadvantage and disable their users. Comparing designs for their ability to provide problem free activity performance helps designers identify the problematic characteristics of certain designs. For instance, a design that works well for everyone except those with hearing impairments may require auditory capabilities not possessed by all.

How to Calculate a PAI Score

A single number called a PAI score is calculated from participants' responses to two questions: (1) how often an impairment condition typically affects their performance of routine activities and (2) how often they find a specific activity problematic.The first question examines incidence as an indicator of the severity of the participants' impairment conditions and the second question examines incidence as an indicator the environment's ability to provide problem-free activity performance.

A two-step process generates the PAI score for an activity based on the percentage of participants reporting that an impairment condition always, usually, sometimes, or rarely affects their typical performance of routine activities who also report that their performance of the specific activity in question is always, usually, sometimes, rarely, or never a problem.

Download the PAI Template

Try it yourself. Download a sample PAI template by clicking the Excel link below. The template includes a detailed description of the two-step process used to generate PAI scores.