ABSTRACT
The ELDeR (Enhanced Living through Design Research) Project, comprised of a team of designers and behavioral scientists, conducted a four-month study at a seniors community near Pittsburgh, PA. The purpose of the project was to understand the experiences of elders and their caregivers in order to: 1) study the eldercare experience from the perspective of primary stakeholders; 2) to assess the importance of psychological and social factors in the eldercare experience; and 3) to identify implications for product, interface, and interaction design and opportunities for new products and technologies. Our findings show that social, emotional, and environmental factors play a key role in the eldercare experience and the adoption and use of new products. We argue that designing eldercare technologies to address all of these factors lowers social and economic barriers to universal usability.
- 1.Billipp, Susan Heyn. (1993). Computer network systems: a prosthetic tool to assist the vulnerable elderly in maintaining their independence. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. (dissertation).Google Scholar
- 2.Button, G. (2000). The ethnographic tradition and design. Design Studies, 21 (4), pp.319-332.Google ScholarCross Ref
- 3.Communication technologies for the elderly: vision, hearing, and speech. (1997). San Diego: Singular Pub. Group.Google Scholar
- 4.Czikszentmihaly, M., and Rochberg-Halton, M. (1981). The Meaning of Things. Boston: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- 5.Engelhardt, K. G.; Goughler, Donald H. (1997). Robotic technologies and the older adult. In Fisk, Arthur D., Rogers, Wendy A., et al (Eds.). Handbook of human factors and the older adult. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc.Google Scholar
- 6.Gaver, W., and Dunne, A. (1999). Projected realities: conceptual design for cultural effect. ACM SIGCH11999 Proceedings, pp. 600-607. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 7.Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
- 8.Golant, S.M. (1984). A Place to Grow Old: The Meaning of Environment in Old Age. NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
- 9.Lacey, G. (1995). Personal adaptive mobility aid for the infirm and elderly :PAM-AID. SERIES: External technical reports, 95-18. Dublin: Trinity College, Department of Computer Science. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 10.Laurel, B. (1991). Computers as Theater. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 11.Lawton, M.P. (1982). Competence, environmental press, and the adaptation of older people. In M.P. Lawton, P.G. Windley, and T.O. Byerts (eds), Aging and the Environment: Theoretical Approaches. NY: Springer Publishing.Google Scholar
- 12.Makela, A., Battarbee, K. Applying Usability Methods to Concept Development of a Future Wireless Communication Device -- Case in Maypole. www.uiah.fi/projects/smart/edesignGoogle Scholar
- 13.Mueller, J. (Fall 1995). Designing for Real People, Design Management Journal, pp.40-44.Google ScholarCross Ref
- 14.Mulliek, A. & Steinfeld, E. (1997) Universal Design -What it is and isn t. Innovation, pp.14-18.Google Scholar
- 15.Norman, D. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
- 16.Personal Robotic Assistants For The Elderly (Nursebot), Carnegie Mellon University. www.ri.cs.cmu.edu/projects/project_34 7.html.Google Scholar
- 17.Pirkl, J. and Pulos, A. (1997). Transgenerational Design: Products for an Aging Population. NY: James Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
- 18.Robot Will Assist the Elderly and Infirmed. (1997) Innovation, 5 (4).Google Scholar
- 19.Salvador, T., Bell, G., Anderson, K. (1999) Design Ethnography. Design Management Journal, pp. 35-41.Google ScholarCross Ref
- 20.Shneiderman, B. (2000) Universal Usability. Communications of the ACM, 43 (5), pp.85-91. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 21.Silverman, P. (1987). Community settings. In P. Silverman (Ed.), The Elderly as Modern Pioneers, pp.234- 262. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
- 22.Sussman, Diane. (February 28, 2000). Robo-care: The Jetsons meets Florence Nightingale. Nurseweek/Healthweek.Google Scholar
- 23.Traetinski, N. (1997) Aesthetics and Apparent Usability: Empirically Assessing Cultural and Methodological Issues. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 115-122. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 24.Ward, R.A., La Gory, M., Sherman, S.R. (1988). The Environment for Aging. Tusealoosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- The ELDer project: social, emotional, and environmental factors in the design of eldercare technologies
Recommendations
The sense lounger: establishing a ubicomp beachhead in elders' homes
CHI EA '05: CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIn this paper we describe the Sense Lounger, a method for simply and cheaply turning a lounge chair into an initial "ubicomp" device in a home; providing a beachhead for transforming the home into a rich ubicomp environment. The Sense Lounger employs ...
The participatory design of a sound and image enhanced daily planner for people with aphasia
CHI '04: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsAphasia is a cognitive disorder that impairs speech and language. From interviews with aphasic individuals, their caregivers, and speech-language pathologists, the need was identified for a daily planner that allows aphasic users to independently manage ...
Creating personas from design ethnography and grounded theory
Personas can be an effective means of communicating and synthesizing design ethnographic field data by helping designers maintain focus on users and make sense of complex needs. Personas have however been criticized on scientific grounding and ...
Comments