Design Guidelines for Socio-Domestic Systems Supporting Informal Elderly Caregiving

Abstract

Current communication practices broadly rely on social media services and instant messaging. However, in the context of intergenerational interaction, this paradigm has not been deeply studied from a holistic perspective, i.e., considering the attitudes, expectations, viewpoints, and concerns of all involved stakeholders. Therefore, there is still a broad amount of open research questions in exploring the potential and implications of designing, developing, and deploying computer-supported solutions in this domain. In this paper, we aim to model---in a comprehensive manner---the structure and dynamics of informal elderly caregiving and intergenerational communication, as a way to understand their socio-technical nuances as a way to support the design of novel computer-supported mechanisms to mediate these processes. More precisely, this implies identifying key design aspects, considering the perspective raised by older adults and how other family members articulate themselves in this context. By addressing the proposed design guidelines, social computing researchers, designers, and practitioners would be able to better understand the complexity of informal elderly caregiving, and identify plausible solutions that would improve user experience and the effectiveness of computer-supported mediation strategies.