Lia Tsotsos

Designing ICTs for Elders: Considering a Taxonomy of Dignity

The consideration of dignity in computer design for elders seems almost non-existent; however, in the medical field, a patient’s dignity is a key consideration. As the world’s population ages and the trend is toward more computerized care, a taxonomy for dignity for healthcare (such as proposed by Jacobson [3]) could be extended and applied to the design of computer and mobile health care systems for older adults. Including dignity into human computer interaction and design could strengthen current design approaches and improve adoption of ICT technologies by older adults. This paper provides a case study where Jacobson’s taxonomy is used to guide an evaluation of a computerized health system.

Improving User Experience and Engagement for Older Adults: A Case Study

Our work focuses on user engagement and the impact of UI design on older users’ level of engagement when using web-based applications. For the purpose of this research we are using Chumbuggy.com, an online service which allows people over 50 to engage in small group discussions about topics that are important and interesting to them. Due to the nature of the service provided by Chumbuggy and its target audience, we needed to design its UI to meet the high level of usability required to maximize the engagement of older adults. To this end, we created an iterative and incremental process of designing and testing Chumbuggy’s UI components. This paper presents our design and testing process, our findings, and a set of guidelines for increasing the online engagement of older adults through effective UI design.

Family Channel: Accessible Social Media for Older Adults

Isolation is a well-known problem amongst the elderly. This isolation might be ameliorated by engaging the elderly in social media. Unfortunately, the devices most commonly used to access social media (PCs, tablets, and phones) might not be the most appropriate for this demographic. A more appropriate device might be television. Using modern technology, it is possible to aggregate specially tagged social media posts from friends and family and narrow-cast it to other family members. Our research involves creating a television-based social media channel that is appropriate for the elderly. We present our initial work which involves developing a proof-of-concept for the Family Channel and identifying user profiles for the 65+ demographic with respect to technology use.