Designing for Older Adults: Overcoming Barriers to a Supportive, Safe, and Healthy Retirement

Older adults (65+) are at increasing risk of being ‘digitally marginalized’ due to lower tech savviness, social isolation, and few peers who can provide the needed input. As a consequence, some seniors have difficulties and are exposed to security risks when accessing essential services which are increasingly moving online. These include making critical life decisions, understanding health information, accessing health services, staying connected to families, or simply doing online shopping. This chapter investigates how online technologies can be designed to be inclusive of older adults\u27 needs, abilities, and contexts. Several barriers barring technology adoption include mental models; attitudes related to critical decision making; privacy concerns; and overall cybersafety concerns preventing seniors from engaging with such resources online. We also propose ways to help the FinTech sector incorporate new approaches so that services and applications better serve the needs and constraints of older adults

Public Governance and Cultural Heritage: Exploring the Links between Culture and Social Indicators with the Principal Component Analysis

The cultural heritage encompasses the values and the identity of nations. It represents a vibrant proof of the past and, nevertheless, the core inspiration for the future. Still, culture is preserved and acknowledged with the care of political and economic spheres. In such context, the governance approach and strategies impact the cultural dimension. The understanding and assessment that governance has on the link between economic inputs and cultural heritage are of utmost importance for the actual preserving and acknowledgement of culture merits. The current chapter concentrates on exploring the synergy of governance strategies related to cultural heritage. The focus is set on two conceptual perspectives that governance of culture incurs: vision and knowledge. On the one hand, governance relates to compliance, accountability, and sustainability and shapes its vision according to these. On the other hand, from the perspective of knowledge, the chapter explores the interdependencies between cultural heritage and quantifiable socioeconomic indicators. By modeling statistical data with the principal component analysis (PCA) method, interesting results point to a possible social assessment of tendencies in the cultural heritage dimension

Uncovering inclusivity gaps in design pedagogy through the digital design marginalization framework

Designers play a key role in the design of inclusive and socially conscious interfaces. Thus, it is imperative for designers to be thoughtful of the ethical and social implications of design. However, gaps in the foundational training that designers receive (e.g., as university students) can negatively impact their ability to consider the social implications of their design practice. This can result in consequences such as digital marginalization, which, as defined by the Digital Design Marginalization (DDM) framework, is the “pushing away”, whether intentional or not, of a defined group of users from a digital or online service or system, where the exclusion has additional, indirect, and long-lasting social consequences on that particular user group. Designers can contribute, even unintentionally, to digital marginalization through their design practices and the design choices they make. We argue that our role as educators includes ensuring not only that our design pedagogy is inclusive, but that the designers we train now are prepared to conduct their future design practice in a manner that is inclusive to all users. As such, we propose to use the Digital Design Marginalization as a lens to guide a reflection-based approach to identify gaps in our pedagogy that may lead to designers becoming ill-equipped to identify how their designs may lead to digital marginalization. Through seven case studies from our own teaching practice, we demonstrate the use of the DDM framework to guide marginalization-focused introspective reflections of curricula. These reflections through the DDM lens revealed gaps in our pedagogy with respect to providing future designers with training that enables them to consider the broader societal and individual implications of the design choices they will make in future practice. Based on our experience using the DDM framework, we then discuss in greater depth how reflection of social consequences of design pedagogy can be operationalized within institutions to reduce educational gaps that may be associated with design-mediated digital marginalization. Finally, we comment on avenues for further development of pedagogical reflection using DDM

Hidden in plain sight:low-literacy adults in a developed country overcoming social and educational challenges through mobile learning support tools

Illiteracy is often associated with people in developing countries. However, an estimated 50 % of adults in a developed country such as Canada lack the literacy skills required to cope with the challenges of today's society; for them, tasks such as reading, understanding, basic arithmetic, and using everyday items are a challenge. Many community-based organizations offer resources and support for these adults, yet overall functional literacy rates are not improving. This is due to a wide range of factors, such as poor retention of adult learners in literacy programs, obstacles in transferring the acquired skills from the classroom to the real life, personal attitudes toward learning, and the stigma of functional illiteracy. In our research we examined the opportunities afforded by personal mobile devices in providing learning and functional support to low-literacy adults. We present the findings of an exploratory study aimed at investigating the reception and adoption of a technological solution for adult learners. ALEX© is a mobile application designed for use both in the classroom and in daily life in order to help low-literacy adults become increasingly literate and independent. Such a solution complements literacy programs by increasing users' motivation and interest in learning, and raising their confidence levels both in their education pursuits and in facing the challenges of their daily lives. We also reflect on the challenges we faced in designing and conducting our research with two user groups (adults enrolled in literacy classes and in an essential skills program) and contrast the educational impact and attitudes toward such technology between these. Our conclusions present the lessons learned from our evaluations and the impact of the studies' specific challenges on the outcome and uptake of such mobile assistive technologies in providing practical support to low-literacy adults in conjunction with literacy and essential skills training

Designing interactions for the ageing populations – addressing global challenges

We are concurrently witnessing two significant shifts: digital devices are becoming ubiquitous, and older people are becoming a very large demographic group. However, despite the recent increase in related CHI publications, older adults continue to be underrepresented in HCI research as well as commercially. Therefore, the overarching aim of this workshop is to increase the momentum for such research within CHI and related fields such as gerontechnology. For this, we plan to create a space for discussing and sharing principles and strategies to design interactions and evaluate user interfaces (UI) for the ageing population. We thus welcome contributions of empirical studies, theories, design and evaluation of UIs for older adults. Building on the success of last two year’s workshops, we aim to grow the community of CHI researchers across borders interested in this topic by fostering a space to exchange results, methods, approaches, and ideas from research on interactive applications in support of older adults that are reflective of international diversity that is representative of CHI

Rethinking mobile interfaces for older adults

This SIG advances the study of mobile user interfaces for the aging population. The topic is timely, as the mobile device has become the most widely used computer terminal and at the same time the number of older people will soon exceed the number of children worldwide. However, most HCI research addresses younger adults and has had little impact on older adults. Some design trends, like the mantra “smaller is smarter”, contradict the needs of older users. Developments like this may diminish their ability to access information and participate in society. This can lead to further isolation (social and physical) of older adults and increased widening of the digital divide. This SIG aims to discuss mobile interfaces for older adults. The SIG has three goals: (i) to map the state-of-art, (ii) to build a community gathering experts from related areas, and (iii) to raise awareness within the SIGCHI community. The SIG will be open to all at CHI

Designing mobile interactions for the ageing populations

We are concurrently witnessing two significant shifts: mobiles are becoming the most used computing device; and older people are becoming the largest demographic group. However, despite the recent increase in related CHI publication, older adults continue to be underrepresented in HCI research as well as commercially, further widening the digital divide they face and hampering their social participation. This workshop aims to increase the momentum for such research within CHI and related fields such as gerontechnology. We plan to create a space for discussing and sharing principles and strategies to design and evaluate mobile user interfaces for the aging population. We thus welcome contributions to empirical studies, theories, design and evaluation of mobile interfaces for older adults

Designing interactions for the ageing populations – addressing global challenges

We are concurrently witnessing two significant shifts: digital devices are becoming ubiquitous, and older people are becoming a very large demographic group. However, despite the recent increase in related CHI publications, older adults continue to be underrep- resented in HCI research as well as commercially. Therefore, the overarching aim of this workshop is to increase the momentum for such research within CHI and related fields such as gerontechnol- ogy. For this, we plan to continue developing a space to discuss and share principles and strategies to design interactions and evaluate user interfaces (UI) for the ageing population. We thus welcome contributions of proposing improved empirical studies, theories, de- sign and evaluation of UIs for older adults. Building on the success of the last three years’ workshops, we aim to grow the community of CHI researchers across borders interested in this topic by fos- tering a space to exchange results, methods, approaches, and ideas from research on interactive applications in support of older adults that are reflective of international diversity

Automated procedure for determination of friction grip and bearing joint strength used for space missions

This paper presents an algorithm that calculates the nominal torque for friction grip joints, followed by its implementation in a Microsoft Excel worksheet that is automated by a macro written in Visual Basic. The algorithm outputs not only the optimum nominal torque (the value for which the margin of safety is maximum) but also the interval of acceptable values so that the user can easily choose the torque according to his preferences

The Impact of the Treatment with Câmpeni Red Petroleum on a XVIII-th Century Icon

This paper presents the study regarding the impact of the treatment with Câmpeni red petroleum on an eighteenth-century icon made of wood, with the aim of active preservation and restoration. In accomplishing this endeavour, there were applied non-invasive techniques of analysis based on optical microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), micro-FTIR and colorimetry CIEL*a*b*. A series of chemical, physical-structural and mechanical characteristics of the wood were traced, in order to assess the degree of preservation enhancement as a result of the applied treatment