Engaging Older Adults in the Participatory Design of Intelligent Health Search Tools

Engaging older adults (adults 65+) in technology design can be challenging. At the same time, it is becoming ever more important to ensure inclusion of diverse perspectives in design research. Several strategies currently exist for successfully recruiting and engaging older adults in design. However, there is still much to learn about how to effectively engage older adults in the design process. In this position paper, we reflect on our experiences engaging older adults in participatory design of "smart" tools for health information search. We share our study design, including our recruitment process and procedures. We then discuss the strategies we used in the design process and challenges we encountered when designing and implementing our research protocol. We contribute our experiences in an effort to facilitate discussion of strategies and opportunities for including older adults in design research

Engager les personnes âgées dans les équipes intergénérationnels et processus de design participatif: une revue systématique de la recherche actuelle

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature (SRL) in the field of Participatory Design (PD), undertaken under the scope of LOCUS – Playful Connected Rural Territories. The project employs an ethnographically, participatory and agile approach to the process of co-designing, developing and evaluating an IoT system to support playful intergenerational engagement in exploring cultural heritage of Portuguese rural territories, by engaging inhabitants, stakeholders and visitors. The SRL aimed to understand how older adults have been integrated and engaged into technology PD teams and processes. This paper focus on the most used methodological approaches and participation methods, along with the challenges in integrating older adults and the strategies to overcome them, which are discussed in the light of project aims. / Cet article présente les résultats d'une revue systématique de la littérature dans le domaine du design participatif, effectuée dans le cadre du Projet LOCUS - Territoires ruraux connectés et ludiques. Le projet utilise une approche ethnographique, participative et agile du processus de co-design, développement et évaluation d'un système d’Internet des objets pour soutenir un engagement intergénérationnel ludique dans l'exploration du patrimoine culturel des territoires ruraux portugais, en impliquant les habitants, les parties prenantes et les visiteurs. La revue systématique de la littérature vise à comprendre comment les personnes âgées ont été intégrées et engagées dans des équipes et des processus de design participatif des technologiques. Cet article se concentre sur les approches méthodologiques et les méthodes de participation les plus utilisées, ainsi que sur les défis de l'intégration des personnes âgées et les stratégies pour les surmonter, qui sont discutés à la lumière des objectifs du projet

Exploring Older Adults’ Beliefs About the Use of Intelligent Assistants for Consumer Health Information Management: A Participatory Design Study

Background: Intelligent assistants (IAs), also known as intelligent agents, use artificial intelligence to help users achieve a goal or complete a task. IAs represent a potential solution for providing older adults with individualized assistance at home, for example, to reduce social isolation, serve as memory aids, or help with disease management. However, to design IAs for health that are beneficial and accepted by older adults, it is important to understand their beliefs about IAs, how they would like to interact with IAs for consumer health, and how they desire to integrate IAs into their homes. Objective: We explore older adults’ mental models and beliefs about IAs, the tasks they want IAs to support, and how they would like to interact with IAs for consumer health. For the purpose of this study, we focus on IAs in the context of consumer health information management and search. Methods: We present findings from an exploratory, qualitative study that investigated older adults’ perspectives of IAs that aid with consumer health information search and management tasks. Eighteen older adults participated in a multiphase, participatory design workshop in which we engaged them in discussion, brainstorming, and design activities that helped us identify their current challenges managing and finding health information at home. We also explored their beliefs and ideas for an IA to assist them with consumer health tasks. We used participatory design activities to identify areas in which they felt IAs might be useful, but also to uncover the reasoning behind the ideas they presented. Discussions were audio-recorded and later transcribed. We compiled design artifacts collected during the study to supplement researcher transcripts and notes. Thematic analysis was used to analyze data. Results: We found that participants saw IAs as potentially useful for providing recommendations, facilitating collaboration between themselves and other caregivers, and for alerts of serious illness. However, they also desired familiar and natural interactions with IAs (eg, using voice) that could, if need be, provide fluid and unconstrained interactions, reason about their symptoms, and provide information or advice. Other participants discussed the need for flexible IAs that could be used by those with low technical resources or skills. Conclusions: From our findings, we present a discussion of three key components of participants’ mental models, including the people, behaviors, and interactions they described that were important for IAs for consumer health information management and seeking. We then discuss the role of access, transparency, caregivers, and autonomy in design for addressing participants’ concerns about privacy and trust as well as its role in assisting others that may interact with an IA on the older adults’ behalf

Participatory design:how to engage older adults in participatory design activities

Ongoing advances in mobile technologies have the potential to improve independence and quality of life of older adults by supporting the delivery of personalised and ubiquitous healthcare solutions. The authors are actively engaged in participatory, user-focused research to create a mobile assistive healthcare-related intervention for persons with age-related macular degeneration (AMD): the authors report here on our participatory research in which participatory design (PD) has been positively adopted and adapted for the design of our mobile assistive technology. The authors discuss their work as a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of technology for (and importantly with) older adults. The authors argue it is largely impossible to achieve informed and effective design and development of healthcare-related technologies without employing participatory approaches, and outline recommendations for engaging in participatory design with older adults (with impairments) based on practical experience

Inclusion in Virtual Reality Technology: A Scoping Review

Despite the significant growth in virtual reality applications and research, the notion of inclusion in virtual reality is not well studied. Inclusion refers to the active involvement of different groups of people in the adoption, use, design, and development of VR technology and applications. In this review, we provide a scoping analysis of existing virtual reality research literature about inclusion. We categorize the literature based on target group into ability, gender, and age, followed by those that study community-based design of VR experiences. In the latter group, we focus mainly on Indigenous Peoples as a clearer and more important example. We also briefly review the approaches to model and consider the role of users in technology adoption and design as a background for inclusion studies. We identify a series of generic barriers and research gaps and some specific ones for each group, resulting in suggested directions for future research

Future directions for ICT in aphasia therapy for older adults: enhancing current practices through interdisciplinary perspectives

Growing numbers of older adults requiring aphasia therapy create challenges for the health care system. Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to provide computer-mediated, self-administered aphasia therapy that complements conventional therapy. We explore overlaps in ICT for older adults and aphasia therapy applications with the goal of integrating innovative ICT in aphasia therapy. Based on a case study, we explain how results of different disciplines developing ICT for older adults can be transferred in order to better support older adults with aphasia. We conclude with future directions for ICT in aphasia therapy by surveying interdisciplinary approaches that integrate best practices from conventional therapy, interface design, tracking technologies, user modelling, adaptation algorithms, playful design, user empowerment, and community interaction

SHELDON Smart habitat for the elderly.

An insightful document concerning active and assisted living under different perspectives: Furniture and habitat, ICT solutions and Healthcare