Engagingdesign - Methods for collective creativity

Research often problematises issues older people face and the development of technologies for older users is regularly driven by this agenda. This paper describes a research programme that positions older people as active participants rather than passive respondents focusing on their preferences and aspirations rather than their impairments. 'Engagingdesign' is a transnational research platform developed by the authors that facilitates creative methods for engaging older people and provides a scaffold for collective creativity. Data collected through interviews and focus groups is transformed through critical artefacts that provide a forum or theatre for conversation through exhibition that in turn becomes the medium and method for further data collection. © 2013 Springer-Verlag

What do Life Cafes tell us about dying and end of life care

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the number of deaths worldwide will increase from 56 million to 70 million by 2030. Within the United Kingdom this equates to an increase of 20% over the next five years. Not only will palliative and end of life care services be required to meet the needs of an increasing number of people who are dying but we must also respond to an increasing number of people who are dying from complex, long-term conditions such as cancer and dementia. This paper reports the findings of the first phase of a study undertaken by design researchers at Sheffield Hallam University to inform the development of new and flexible models of care that are responsive to the needs of an ageing population with increasingly complex end of care life needs. Taking the method of ‘exhibition in a box’, a form of object elicitation developed by Chamberlain and Craig (2013) as the starting point this study curated a series of creative activities, named the ‘Life Café’ to scaffold thinking and to prompt conversation

Journeying through Dementia: the story of a 14 year design-led research enquiry

Consider a linear ordering equipped with a finite sequence of monadic predicates. If the ordering contains an interval of order type \omega or -\omega, and the monadic second-order theory of the combined structure is decidable, there exists a non-trivial expansion by a further monadic predicate that is still decidable.Comment: 18 page

A design primer for the domestication of health technologies

Abstract: As the population ages and places increasing pressures on health services there is widespread acceptance that we have to radically rethink how care is delivered. There is a growing body of research that focuses on telehealth to support self-care and a shift of traditional care from hospital to the home environ. This paper explores the culture and practice of health interventions that have previously resided within the domain of the hospital and the implications of this shift when they infiltrate the private space of the home. Research undertaken by the authors using a critical artefact methodology highlights collaborative approaches between design and health are critical to both understand these two disparate environments and that careful consideration is required when developing appropriate new landscapes and paradigms for care. This presents opportunity for design both in developing solutions but also within creative research approaches to understand the complexity of the challenges

Life Cafe - A co-designed method of engagement

The last decade has witnessed a demographic change on unprecedented scale - people are living longer and with more complex, long term conditions. This paper presents a programme which seeks to rethink how palliative and end of life care can be provided equitably, efficiently and sustainably for future generations. It explores the methodological approach undertaken by university researchers, to engage communities in conversations around a topic often seen as taboo. The community engagement focuses on understanding what is important to individuals in life, care, and end of life. A methodology, named the Life Café, has been developed to gather research in an informal manner within community groups and familiar environments. The Life Café comprises critical artefacts, activities and resources, co-developed with community members developed to answer the research questions. The Life Cafe has become a product that can be used across different services to establish what matters to individuals and enable difficult conversations

The NESTORE e-Coach: Designing a Multi-Domain Pathway to Well-Being in Older Age

This article describes the coaching strategies of the NESTORE e-coach, a virtual coach for promoting healthier lifestyles in older age. The novelty of the NESTORE project is the definition of a multi-domain personalized pathway where the e-coach accompanies the user throughout different structured and non-structured coaching activities and recommendations. The article also presents the design process of the coaching strategies, carried out including older adults from four European countries and experts from the different health domains, and the results of the tests carried out with 60 older adults in Italy, Spain and The Netherlands

Desires for active ageing technology

Several technological devices have been developed over the last decade to support an active lifestyle as people age. Despite substantial investment, they have failed to reach widespread acceptance. Limited adoption can be linked to little involvement of prospective users in the design process and overreliance on deficit models of ageing that portray people in decline. The paper proposes a structured methodology to collect user requirements based on the Integrated Behavioural Model. The methodology was applied in an interview study investigating behavioural intentions of preferred activities in a sample of 18 older users. Results have been elaborated as desires for actions in a model which puts the person (described in terms of attitudes, perceived norms and personal agency) to the forefront of the designer's attention. The model is contrasted with related work on technology adoption and used to define trajectories for active ageing technology as design for pleasurable and resourceful ageing