Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Applications, Services and Contexts

While interacting with digital information, input devices are varying widely as technology is constantly changing. The most successful input devices are currently touchscreens, as they combine information input and output on a single interface. The aim of the present research was to gain a basic understanding of how people hold their hands when interacting with handheld devices and how this interaction changes depending on task context. To gain a large sample size, the study was administered via an online questionnaire. Five different hand positions were evaluated with regard to three different tasks: typing short text, typing long text, and reading. When considering user characteristics with regard to technology, one of the most influential factors is the user’s age. Therefore, the sample (N = 1022) was analyzed with regard to four different technology generations. Results show that there are significant differences in handheld positions with regard to different tasks and depending on the interaction with a smartphone or tablet PC. Furthermore, significant differences were detected between the four technology generations.

In view of the adoption of touchscreen devices by older aged users, it is important to consider the comfort of use from an ergonomic point of view. We implemented an experimental study associating the analysis of the movements and performances of 15 older aged adults (65–84). The task consisted on positioning targets with drag-and-drop interaction on a tablet. Participants were equipped with a motion capture system. In this paper, we present a preliminary analysis of the movements of the users’ wrist, characterized by a predominant radial deviation and extension of this articulation during interaction with their finger. We discuss the impact of the ergonomics of touchscreen interaction on the accessibility of interactive technologies for older people.

Due to the complexity of text in Asian languages and hence the complexity of input methods, demand for stylus-type input is higher in Asian than the Western world, prompting Asian tech brands such as Samsung and Sony to introduce smart devices with in-built stylus to cater to this group of consumers. To account for general usage, this research has opted to employ mobile devices with built-in stylus as test equipment. In addition, in order to account for the difference between various sizes of devices, the researchers have chosen three device dimensions: 5.7 in, 9.7 in, and 12 in, for the tests, and each size of device is compared to an identically sized piece of paper. In consideration of the locality of the behavior of users, the subjects are asked to input using Traditional Chinese text only. Results from the experiment showed, in terms of writing behavior, that almost all subjects put the device flat on a table for writing, and that the habit of spinning the paper to an angle for writing is transferred to writing on a device. The finger positions on a stylus change depending on the properties of the device, especially when writing on the 5.7 in, the smallest device, touching the stylus at the smaller supporting points or completely dangle the pen away from the palm occurs much more often than on the bigger device sizes. In terms of writing performance, writing time on a device is generally longer than that on paper. The words written on a device are bigger and grow in size as the device size increases on the devices, but on the different sizes of paper the words stay relatively the same size. Words written on a device are generally less legible than those written on paper.

As Taiwan becomes an aged society, the problems caused by memory and cognitive impairments have added to the enormous medical care costs, increasing the burden placed on the next generation. Medical studies have found that adding brain-protective factors into daily life and engaging in mental activities that stimulate brain function, creative activities, or regular exercise can significantly prevent mental and memory loss. Therefore, this study used the concepts within reminiscence therapy to develop a smart photo album in order to improve elderly memories and ability to feel happiness. The user-centered design focused on care for the elderly to accomplish the conceptual design. Observation and interviews were first conducted to explore the needs and ideas of the elderly had regarding photographs (the discover step). Then, the key factors for design were analyzed and defined by affinity diagram (the define step). We founded 4 affinity factors relating to the mental ideals of the elderly: Memories (k1), Sharing (k2), Emotion (k3) and Lack (k4). Next, the scenario story was used to generate rich and innovative conceptual designs and to integrate new technologies (the develop step). In this study the smart photo album was named Fond Memories that presented two features: “Image memory sharing” and “Emotion detection”. These shared memories create empathy, relieve depression, and allow the elderly to enjoy memories with their families.

Wearable devices such as smartwatch, tracker, and head-mounted display devices are commonly used along with the advance of IT. Users face novel user experiences owing to the “wearing” nature of wearable devices. However, until now there is no framework to assess the overall UX of a wearable device. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide a systematic framework that assist in the evaluation and design of wearable devices. In this study, a framework was presented consisting of design space, evaluation factors, and context of use. It could classify each area into several subcategories based on the previous research. We carried out a case study of expert evaluation and user evaluation to investigate the applicability of the framework. For two types of wearable devices, HMD and smartwatch, the experts evaluated the correlation between the design spaces and the evaluating factors. Users also assessed the association between the two areas through questionnaires. Results showed that relation in between design space and evaluation factors alter by varying products. Although there are limitations on the number of subjects and UX factors, this study has significance in that it enables quick and systematic evaluation of wearable devices.

An increasing usage of mobile technologies has been seen among diverse age groups of users in recent years. The limited screen size and multiple interaction styles inevitably produce much more workload on mobile technologies use; thus it is necessary to investigate the possible capabilities involved in mobile navigation tasks. The particular interests of this study are the cognitive capabilities, namely spatial ability, short-term memory and processing speed and attention, as well as the visual abilities including vision acuity and visual perception of digital screens. Fifteen participants who covered a wide age range attended in this field experiment to complete several navigation tasks with three levels of complexity using an experimental mobile application. The results suggest that the capability of processing speed and attention is more important than the other capabilities for navigation performance and subjective preference. Specifically, the capability of processing speed and attention is significantly correlated with user characteristics, including age, education experience, and technology experience. The results can help designers to address the major capabilities involved in mobile navigation tasks to make relevant allowance to include more possible users, such as elderly people.

Due to the rise of the app market, icon design is highly valuable to app marketing. Currently, with a wide range of icons in the main menu, users can not immediately identify their needed interface or function, thus encountering operational problems. In the past, almost all relevant studies mainly focused on visual recognizability and shape features of 2D icons, not on those of 3D icons. Therefore, this study probed comprehensively into the design elements of 2D and 3D icons. The design elements include icon composition, border, polarity, shade, and shadow. After that, the design elements of 2D and 3D icons were extracted which may serve as a practical and scholarly reference in the field of icon design in the future.

This study aims to explore the elderly users’ preference for the transparency of the guiding diagrams in the phone interface and their use of the interface. In the one-to-one interview and the questionnaire survey, the subjects compared the guiding diagrams of two levels of transparency, and the statistical software was adopted to analyze and process the data obtained from the questionnaire. According to the results of the statistical analysis of the interviews and questionnaire survey involving 20 elderly people, there is no significant difference in the preference for transparency among the elderly users, and the effects of the transparency of guiding diagrams on the use of the phone are insignificant. The findings can provide reference for phone interface designers in the process of interface design.

Memories are an interesting part of everyday lives and memorialization through storytelling is an important way to share memories. The increased use of digital devices in the society has brought about a shift suggesting that people are willing to use technologies to remember the dead. With a view to designing devices and platforms to support memorializing through storytelling we explored how willing and comfortable people are sharing stories about the deceased. Our results revealed longer stories were told about younger people who had been dead for longer. This paper reports on our findings of an exploration of stories told by the bereaved and considers design implications for future work.

We analyze smartwatch use from an intergenerational perspective to garner non-stereotypical reflections on ageing. The research questions are: (1) How do personal interests shape, and how are they shaped by, first-time use of a smartwatch? (2) To what extent do tracked data help in interpreting the relationship between the user and the device? We analyze two older and two middle-aged adults involved in a one-year case study, and combine log data and reported activities for richer empirical evidence. The older adults showed higher levels of smartwatch activity than the middle-aged. The key services they used were notifications and the pedometer. We found that smartwatch uses and forms of appropriation are as diverse as the four participants are and that the ways in which such watches are adopted are shaped by personal circumstances and interests. The tracked data helped to illustrate smartwatch uses, providing acceptably accurate pictures of activities. However, the low number of participants in the case study magnified the data’s limitations, which illustrate issues to be taken into account when working with tracked data – or big data in general.

With the arrival of an aging society, the major users of social network services include not only young people, but also older persons. The purpose of this study is therefore to understand the motivations of online community users. Data from younger and older people were compared; both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. This study first reviewed the literature regarding the purposes of using an online community. Second, based on the literature, a survey was conducted among college students. Finally, interviews were conducted with both younger and older people. The results were summarized and compared between the different age groups. First of all, the major motivations of young people to use SNSs include maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, entertainment value, and purposive value (especially for homework and learning). Second, the major motivations of older adults to use SNSs are to contact friends and share information and knowledge. Finally, the major difference between young people and older adults’ motivations is the use of SNSs by the young for entertainment purposes and to kill time. These findings will contribute toward understanding the motivations of online community users across different age groups.

This paper draws on data from the empirical study Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space funded by the ESRC, UK. The focus of the project was to explore the significance of the ordinary and day-to-day and focus on the everyday meanings, lived experiences, practical activities and social contexts in which people in mid to later life live their daily lives. The research involved a diverse sample of 62 women and men aged 50 years and over who took photographs of their different daily routines to create a weekly visual diary. This diary was then explored through in-depth photo-elicitation interviews to make visible the rhythms, patterns and meanings that underlie habitual and routinized everyday worlds. The data was analysed using the software Atlas Ti. The analysis highlighted: (1) the increasing importance of digital connectivity and the ways in which people in mid to later life actively engage (and resist) technologies of communication in their daily lives; and (2) the significance of embodied co-presence and the immediacy of shared space and/or time. Exploring the routines, meanings, and patterns that underpin everyday life has therefore enabled us to make visible how people build, maintain and experience their social and virtual connections, and the ways in which digital devices and information technologies are being incorporated into (and resisted) within daily life.

In this paper, we present an age-friendly E-commerce system with novel assistive functional technologies, aiming at providing a comfortable online shopping environment for the elderly. Besides incorporating human factors for the elderly into the design of user interface, we build an age-friendly system by improving the functional usability. First, to improve the searching experience, we design a multimodal product search function, which accepts image, speech, text and the combination of them as inputs to help the elderly find products easily and accurately. Second, we develop a product reputation function to provide an objective evaluation of products’ quality, which helps the elderly filter out low-quality products while saves their energy in product comparison. Additionally, to reduce the elderly’s visual burden when browsing the Web, a personalized speech feedback function is designed to provide speech assistant for the elderly. Our system has been testified using real-world E-commerce data, and the result demonstrates its feasibility.

This article describes the procedure and results of two workshops conducted following interviews with potential users within the development process of a feedback component for the Historytelling system, a cooperative interactive website for older adults. For the development of the Historytelling system we follow a Human Centered Design for aging (HCD+) process, gathering requirements and designing first prototypes of this component. Workshop results show that the most important element of the feedback component is the personal, context sensitive acknowledgement of the stories which can be enriched with multimedia contents to provide more palpable appreciation.

The elderly should not become burden of the society. They still have strong sense of participation and sense of contribution in society through convenient high-efficient new social media, exploring social values of the elderly and making them a strong impetus of social development. Considering the population growth of the elderly and the increasing popularization of new media-based social contact in the current age, new media usage behavior data of the elderly were collected through questionnaire survey and in-depth interview. Factors of new media usage behavior of the elderly were analyzed by SPASS and four main influencing factors were concluded: serviceability, usability, value and willingness (SUVW) of the elderly using new media-based social contact. Next, the media-based social contact model of the elderly was constructed by the theoretical model approach based on SUVW. The new-media social contact mode of the elderly verified and discussed through some cases of china. Finally, shortcomings of this study were disclosed and the some reflections and prospects were proposed according to the large fuzzy improvement space in this field. These deserve further deep researches in future.

Nowadays, the majority of people is connected to the world-wide web. Online services are included into everyday life to such a degree that non-use is almost impossible. Not only the young digital natives are online, also older users employ more and more online services. The amount of data created is vast but not without risks in terms of privacy behaviors. The present research addresses age differences in terms of attitude towards online privacy and privacy protection behaviors. Moreover, factors that can predict protection behavior and privacy concern, respectively, are examined. Via an online survey in Germany (N = 200), privacy concerns, trust in online companies, awareness of and experience with online data misuse, as well as their self-efficacy regarding protective measures was explored, contrasting younger and older users. It was found that older users significantly differ in their awareness of privacy issues and protect their data more actively than younger users. Furthermore, it was found that said protection behavior is mainly influenced by privacy self-efficacy, followed by privacy concern and trust. Privacy concern, in turn, is predicted through awareness and previous experience with data misuse.

The development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) reduces the cost of communication, and the emergence of a large number of virtual communities to promote more frequent knowledge sharing behavior. However, there are still great differences in knowledge sharing behavior among different age groups in virtual communities. Through long-term observation we found that whether it is a large virtual community, such as WeChat, micro-blog, Zhihu et al., or a virtual community which is designed for the elderly, such as The lovely old man, The home of old man, Sunset Forum et al., the old people’s participation and enthusiasm for knowledge sharing are not high in China. The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivation of the elderly to participate in knowledge sharing in virtual communities. We select participants through various virtual communities, and using the grounded theory to carry out conceptual analysis and coding. To understand the motivation of the elderly to participate in knowledge sharing in the virtual community, so as to provide some reference for the development of the elderly human resources.

A report published by the Entertainment Software Association in 2013 stated that nearly half of persons aged 50 years and above play digital games. To better understand the characteristics of this growing marking, audience studies have been conducted. However, there is a dearth of research that specifically assesses the underlying qualities that characterize older adult non-gamers. As a direct extension of a study that examined older adult gamers and resulted in the generation of theory, this study sought to understand the older non-gamer audience. In particular, this study aimed to identify aspects that occurred over the course of the adult’s life that hindered digital game engagement. By individually interviewing eleven non-gaming older adults (age 60 to 89), three notable themes emerged and provided supportive evidence for the validity of the theory. By gleaning insight from the full spectrum of the population (gamers to non-gamers), game scholars and developers may a have better understanding of how to meet the needs of a wide range of older adults.

Intergenerational gaming is gaining growing scholarly attention, as it can be considered a means of fostering relationships between younger and older players, a way of overcoming real or perceived differences between generations, a chance to (re)negotiate norms and roles, and a way to question age-related stereotypes. In this paper, we conduct a literature review on intergenerational gaming and pervasive gaming and present a research design to conduct an intergenerational gaming study focusing on Pokémon Go. We aim at exploring gaming practices, role negotiations, and the presence/absence of age-related stereotypes. To reach our goals, we elaborate and evaluate different research methods and tools, discussing their strengths and weaknesses and designing further research steps.

Older adults are the fastest growing population in the world, with the number of those over sixty years old expected to grow to more than two billion by 2050. In recent years, discussions have focused on programs aimed at fostering socioemotional factors, such as social connections, subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction, and levels of loneliness of older adults, to maintain their quality of life. This paper reviews the literature on socioemotional benefits and the impacts of digital games on this factor. Three examples are given from recent studies carried out in Canada that demonstrate the impacts of digital games on social connectedness.

Dutch historian Johan Huizinga [1] viewed games as a fundamental aspect of life. As long ago as 1938, he observed that, next to “homo faber” (man the maker), there is also the concept of “homo ludens” (man the player). The aim of this paper is to explore what we can learn from previously conducted empirical studies about the motivation and capability of older adults to use exergames. We were guided by the following questions. To which extent: (1) Are older adults motivated to play exergames and why is this the case?, (2) Are older adults able to play exergames and why is this the case? and (3) Can the voices of the older players be heard in the empirical studies on exergaming in later life? We conducted a narrative literature review to gain insight, not only into the factors relating to older adults’ engaging in exergames, but also into the ways older adults themselves experience playing such games. To avoid a mainly functionalist perspective on play, we will also include hedonic aspects of playing exergames.

Interpersonal power, an influential force in relationships, changes over time. Older adults may experience diminishing power as roles in the family shift, leading to negative physical and emotional outcomes. In this study, we examined the potential of joint video gameplay to build or restore power in intergenerational family relationships. Participants (n = 102) were asked to play video games together over a period of six weeks. Participants completed a modified version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory [34] before and after the treatment and responded to a series of open-ended questions post-treatment. Results indicate an increase in referent, expert, and informational power for older adults, and an increase of referent and reward power for younger adults. These findings suggest that with careful design and consideration of current and potential players, video games have the capacity to positively impact families, and social life in general, by generating positive distribution of power among family members.

Playing video games has become an increasingly popular activity among elderly people. In the present contribution, differences in the motivational profile of these “silver gamers” and younger player segments are investigated. Based on the socio-emotional selectivity theory and age identity theory, it was hypothesized that silver games and younger cohorts differ with respect to the importance of six motivational factors (i.e., challenge, escapism, relaxation, competition, friendship, and collecting/completism). Moreover, it was examined whether these potential age effects interact with gender dynamics in gaming motivations. A large online survey of German players of the casual online game “Farmerama”© (N = 26,109) was conducted. Data analysis revealed that the motivational profile of silver gamers did not differ markedly from the profiles of younger gamer cohorts. Substantial differences between older and younger players were only found for one of the analyzed motivational factors (relaxation). Moreover, no gender-by-age dynamics were identified. Hence, age identity theory and socio-emotional selectivity theory only displayed limited empirical explanatory power to predict specific motivational patterns among silver gamers. Rather, the findings of the present study suggest that older gamers’ motivations to play games are mostly congruent with the reasons why younger people turn to gaming.

The purpose of this study was to explore a user-centered design (UCD) process to create a multiplayer online escape game with embedded learning content for older adults. Older adults aged 65 and over were involved in the needs assessment and prototype evaluation. The needs assessment assisted the researchers and developers in understanding older adults’ social interaction in real-life escape rooms, which resulted in a list of design recommendations for the online escape game. The findings of prototype evaluation illustrated that older users enjoyed the theme of classical literary work, crossword puzzles, and the format of dual play. It was also found that our UCD process could not effectively address all design challenges of developing a digital escape game for older adults.

The objective of this study was to explore the ways in which collaborative digital gameplay facilitates intergenerational interaction between older adults aged 80+ and younger people. Five intergenerational pairs played two Wii games once a week for six weeks. Analyzing participants’ conversations during gameplay reveals that guided participation in the form of question-answer is the main way through which the two age groups can maintain shared focus and participate in the meaning-making process. Older adults play the roles of students, followers, and storytellers while younger people play the roles of teachers, leaders, encouragers, and caregivers during the game sessions. The findings also show that intergenerational play facilitates prosocial behaviors in younger people.

Poppelreuter and Raven tests are used by psychologists to analyze cognitive abilities, mental diseases like visual agnosia, and even dementia syndromes like Alzheimer. It is known that this tests can be applied using mobile devices. However, the natural deterioration of the elderly, particularly visual weakness, may cause problems when using devices, even with Large or Xlarge screens. In order to reduce this problems, we proposed the use of a Distributed User Interface, using a tablet and an smartTV, to support users with visual problems to do Poppelreuter and Raven tests. At the end of our research we confirm that the application of visual tests using a Distributed User Interface is feasible.

Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions and services may be used to support and extend the independent living of older adults in their living environments by responding to real needs of caregivers, service providers and public authorities. Telemedicine and telehealth platforms are among the various types of IoT services that could support the provision of health services. Current Health Technology Assessment (HTA) models that are used for the evaluation of telehealth and telemedicine services do not consider IoT aspects. HTA models would ideally need to be extended to include IoT platforms, for an optimal introduction of IoT in everyday provision of health and care services. This paper presents an initial adaptation of the Model for Assessment of Telemedicine (MAST) for IoT Telemedicine services based on a literature review of IoT, telemedicine and telehealth services characteristics. MAST involves assessment of outcomes within the following seven domains: Health problem and characteristics of the application, Safety, Clinical effectiveness, Patient perspectives, Economic aspects, Organizational aspects, Socio-cultural, ethical and legal aspects. The domains of the characteristics of the application, socio-cultural, safety and ethical and legal aspects were identified as those to be adapted to cover new challenges associated to IoT services.

A terminology gap is one of the leading difficulties faced by consumers and practitioners in selecting assistive technology (AT). As we design and develop a decision support tool for people to discover and choose AT, it is crucial to better understand the language that the users can interpret and prefer to use when referring to and searching for AT. This paper presents a study that aims to harvest vocabulary of people describing access technologies, access needs and difficulties. We describe the method of eliciting user-generated, domain-specific vocabulary; analyze data collected from 44 participants during the pilot phase; and discuss potential use of the vocabulary to improve interface design and product findability.

An increasing number of scholars have been recently exploring the role of factors that foster the adoption of different types of assistive technologies among older adults. Our study contributes to this field with a mixed-methods intervention study that combines a baseline and follow-up telephone survey with semi-structured interviews to evaluate the user experience and potentially identifies additional acceptance factors of e-care systems and relations among them. Different assistive technologies were tested and evaluated by three groups of participants: (1) older adults testing mobile and wearable devices and (2) informal carers who remotely monitored events recorded by e-care systems installed in the homes of (3) care receivers. The findings indicate heterogeneous needs and expectations these three groups have towards the use of e-care systems. Moreover, the results also unveil the fear of not getting help quickly in case of an emergency, and perception of safety and peace of mind as important predictors of the use of e-care systems among informal carers and care receivers. Indirectly, the results also reveal the importance of intervention and mixed methods design studies as a means of a more comprehensive understanding of acceptance factors of assistive technologies.

Ageing-in-place, the ability to age holistically in the community, is increasingly gaining recognition as a solution to address resource limitations in the elderly care sector. Effective elderly care models require a personalised and all-encompassing approach to caregiving. In this regard, sensor technologies have gained attention as an effective means to monitor the wellbeing of elderly living alone. In this study, we seek to investigate the potential of non-intrusive sensor systems to detect socially isolated community dwelling elderly. Using a mixed method approach, our results showed that sensor-derived features such as going-out behavior, daytime napping and time spent in the living room are associated with different social isolation dimensions. The average time spent outside home is associated with the social loneliness level, social network score and the overall social isolation level of the elderly and the time spent in the living room is positively associated with the emotional loneliness level. Further, elderly who perceived themselves as socially lonely tend to take more naps during the day time. The findings of this study provide implications on how a non-intrusive sensor-based monitoring system comprising of motion-sensors and a door contact sensor can be utilized to detect elderly who are at risk of social isolation.

With the increasingly aging population and advances in information technology, self-health management has become an important topic. Middle-aged and elderly people are considered to have higher risks of contracting multiple chronic diseases and complications, thus increasing their need for healthcare. Personal health information systems provide middle-aged and elderly people with their personal healthcare information, enable them to exercise their right to know their healthcare information, and ultimately enhance measures that increase users’ convenience in managing their own health. Although several prior studies have focused on the factors that influence the adoption of personal health records and electronic medical records, the literature on middle-aged and elderly people’s attitudes toward the use of personal health information systems in self-health management is scarce. Thus, this study proposes a theoretical model to explain middle-aged and elderly people’s intention to use a personal health information system in self-health management. A field survey was conducted in Taiwan to collect data from middle-aged and elderly people. A total of 240 valid responses were obtained, constituting a response rate of 88.89%. The results indicate that perceived severity, perceived benefits, self-efficacy, and cues to action have positive effects on usage intention. However, perceived susceptibility and perceived barriers do not significantly affect behavioral intention. The study has implications on the development of strategies to improve personal health IT acceptance.

Welfare technology (WT) is often developed with a technical perspective, which does not involve important ethical considerations and different values that come up during the development and implementation of WT within elderly care. This paper presents a study where we have applied an ethical value matrix to support systematic ethical assessments of WT intended for personal health monitoring. The matrix consists of values in a checklist and a number of stakeholders and it is possible to analyze which values are emphasized by which stakeholders. The aim was to assess the matrix and find out how the matrix supports identification of values and interests that drive the various stakeholders in the development and implementation of WT. We have realized that several values specified by different actors as especially important were not included in the matrix and that the values in the matrix did not visualize or enable identification of value conflicts.

Family caregivers often assist their care recipients with a wide variety of activities ranging from basic personal care to transportation, medication management, finances and more. Furthermore, many caregivers live apart from the loved ones that they provide care to, and have responsibilities outside of caregiving including work and family. Use of technologies and services designed to make life easier for the general population can also be leveraged to reduce the burden and stress related with caregiving. In this study, 30 family caregivers were surveyed in depth to learn about their experiences with various technologies and services. Questions covered caregivers’ use of technologies and services, perceived usefulness and ease of use, reasons for use and non-use, and ideas for new and improved tools. Many caregivers were currently using a technology or service for caregiving, but most of the technologies and services presented in the questionnaire were only used by a limited number of participants. While usage was limited, those that currently used technologies and services generally found them helpful for making caregiving duties easier. Responses showed that technologies and services were not being widely used mainly due to limited awareness and availability, and less because of lack of interest.

We developed an interactive communication robot to support the elderly who have mild cognitive impairment with their daily schedule. In this study, we examined how elderly people receiving information from a robot behave according to the robot’s interaction protocol, through an experiment providing schedule information for several days. In addition, we examined the interaction between humans and robots through long-term life intervention experiments and analyzed the quantitative and qualitative changes in their reactions.

Digital storytelling is a form of narrative that creates short films using media technology such as downloading still photos, sound, music, and videos. Past research has indicated benefits of storytelling for persons with dementia to include enhanced relationships and communication. The purpose of this research was to explore and understand digital storytelling as perceived and experienced by the storytellers themselves.Using a multi-site case study design, the study was conducted in Edmonton, and will continue in Vancouver and Toronto. This paper presents preliminary data collected in Edmonton, the first site to commence. The study involved participants with dementia in a seven-session workshop over the period of six weeks, where they created digital stories with the help of researchers and care partners. Participants then discussed the experience of meeting with researchers, sharing stories and using technology including digital media. Lastly, there was an opportunity for participants to share their digital stories with loved ones and the public.Data was collected through observational field notes and audio recorded workshop sessions and interviews. The recordings were transcribed and analyzed using NVivo 10 software and using a thematic analysis protocol.Findings showed that overall participants enjoyed the process of creating digital stories, despite some challenges with communication, memory and using technology. Findings also provided insight into the best practices for a digital storytelling workshop as expressed by the storytellers with dementia. Digital storytelling has the potential for persons with dementia to share and preserve stories in a meaningful and rewarding way.

The information behaviour of informal caregivers of people with dementia was explored, from when the first symptoms of dementia were noticed until a decision to seek medical attention was made. Qualitative methods were applied and interviews conducted with 21 caregivers. Their information behaviour went through a sequence of three stages, in line with Holly Skodol Wilson’s temporal model [27]: (1) Information about the disease is noticed; (2) Interpretation of information – Normalizing and discounting; (3) Suspecting – Purposive information seeking begins. As their information need developed, as described by Taylor [15], the caregivers moved from relying on opportunistic information seeking at the first two stages, to using both opportunistic and purposive seeking on the third stage. After they had fully developed their information need, they could seek information that was useful for bridging their knowledge gap, which allowed them to move forward to the decision to seek medical advice for the patients. The second stage of the process was particularly complicated as the caregivers misinterpreted the information about dementia that they came across as signs of something else. More public discussion by professionals about dementia could provide the caregivers and the patients with a better understanding of the disease. This in turn might help to shorten the time spent at the second stage, making it possible for the caretakers to enter the third stage more quickly, and thereby to come to the decision to seek medical advice.

The purpose of this study is to focus on “User Interface Design of Electronic Wheelchair.” Two stages were set for this study. First, the questionnaire survey was used to discuss the interface design of an electronic wheelchair; second, the observation method was used to understand the participant’s operation of the electronic wheelchair and its operation time was measured. There were 27 participants in the first stage with convenience sampling from a design college in Far East University. In this stage, 49 icons were designed by the focus group, and the icons were divided based on the following functions: power, alarm, direction, speed adjustment, battery, and stop icon. In the second stage, there were 20 undergraduates with convenience sampling from the same college. All of them had no operation experience of the electronic wheelchair. The results showed that the power icon, alarm icon, speed adjustment icon, and the battery icon demonstrated that the new icons were better than the present icons. The results also showed that there was no significant variation in the usage of the wheelchair between the male and female participants. On the other hand, the correlation analysis performed for the operation concept revealed that the operation of power and the operation of speed adjustment exhibited a high correlation. The left/right operation and the forward/backward operation exhibited a significant direct correlation.

Fall is one of most threats to elders’ health when their living alone. We propose a fall detection method based on skeleton data getting from Kinect. This method choose biomechanics equilibrium as main feature and adopt Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTM) to detect a fall. It does not require elders to wear any other sensors and can protect elders’ privacy comparing with other vision-based methods. The performances show that it can detect 95% fall. Our method provides a feasible solution for fall detection.

In recent years, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions for older people have been increasingly focusing on leisure and educational activities, as opposed to healthcare assistance.In this framework, the European research project STAGE – Streaming of Theatre and Arts for old aGe Entertainment, was recently approved and funded by the Active and Assisted Living - AAL programme, in the context of Call for Proposals 2015.STAGE aims at developing an easy-to-use ICT platform to deliver cultural and educational content to older people via video streaming technology. This content will be provided through customized interfaces and will include events such as theatre plays, concerts, opera performances and museum exhibits.In order to accomplish this, it will employ a co-design methodology, involving older users in the design and development of the platform from the beginning of project activities. Users will also test the platform prototype and provide feedback, in order to define a final fully customized version.The ultimate goal of the project is to provide older people who are interested in culture but find difficulties accessing it, with a facilitated and affordable way to enjoy this type of content.

Rapid aging and low birthrate of the society is a big issue especially in suburban district of Japan. Since social participation is one of the major factors of well being, online communication helps the elderly in suburban community maintain social relationships by receiving various kinds of services provided from urban area. Our research group introduced a remote IT classroom for senior citizens as an example of local senior communities support each other by connecting those communities through the Internet. This remote IT classroom is based on video conferencing system, and the IT lecturer and his assistants in urban district taught participants live in suburban district how to use tablet devices. From previous study, assistants pointed out that they had difficulties in establishing conversation with the students. Thus we propose the use of telepresence robots in order to overcome this issue. Results from the remote IT classroom indicated that the application of telepresence robots lowered the barrier for initiating conversation between remote assistants and local students.

Prior studies have a debate on whether research performance will be affected by age. Some researchers suggest that scientist’s career age will positively affect research performance. For instance, for senior faculty with the later career years, their publications only slightly decline than highly productive faculty members, suggesting the statement of “Matthew effect” in science. In contrast, some studies point out that research productivity will decline with age, showing “a loss of vigor” in scientific research. This research question is still remain unanswered. The purpose of this study is to reexamine this association between career age and research performance, measured by number of publications, top-tier publications, and the h-index. The empirical study was conducted on a sample of 137 scholars from the Web of Knowledge. The results indicate that the relationship between career age and research performance is not a linear, nearly an inverted U-shaped curve.

A growing number of libraries are introducing maker spaces for facilitating the access of a diverse audience to the activities and tools that can foster the development of digital co-creativity and learning by making artefacts. In this paper, we introduce the intergenerational techno-creative activities we have co-designed in the context of the EspaceLab makerspace under the project #smartcitymaker, and we then analyze the potential of intergenerational techno-creative activities to overcome the gender and age stereotypes related to creative uses of technologies. We observe that intergenerational learning does not occur spontaneously in most cases and makerspace facilitation must promote intergenerational collaboration for achieving the objectives of facilitating learning across the lifespan by taking advantage of the forces of each age group.

The aging workforce is already impacting on companies, particularly those in countries of the industrialized Western world. Furthermore, Western companies are coming under the increasing influence of technological developments, such as ‘Industrie 4.0’, which are in the process of completely changing traditional working environments. In order to maintain their industrial competitiveness, companies need to synchronize these technological developments with their own organizational requirements and in particular with the requirements of an aging workforce. We show how different types of competencies may be categorized in order to enable a successful synchronization. In addition, we take a look at recent developments in the domain of ‘Industrie 4.0’ and derive future research areas for solving the challenges involved.

Finding good job matches for elderly workers is becoming a big challenge for aging society. To secure the labor force population, it is necessary to improve the employment rates of the elderly workers and utilize their accumulated knowledge and skills. Matching relies on each recruiter’s tacit knowledge of what we assume as word association information in matching experts’ mind based on their experience. In order to conduct effective job matching for elderly workers, retrieving word associations from the matching experts’ tacit knowledge is necessary for the purpose of generating domain-specific ontology. In this paper, we propose an interactive job matching system that collects recruiters’ interaction data to find word association specific to job matching for elderly workers. Our system is designed for recruitment operations as to acquire the real interaction data with real job opportunity. Our experimental results indicate that the interaction data are effective for identifying word associations that can be used to extract the recruiters’ tacit knowledge.

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of mental model similarity on the performance of older adults. A total of 14 older adults were recruited and their performance was observed. The results of the experiment indicate that mental model similarity, which measures the gap between older adults’ mental models and designers’ mental models, differed among information structures. Specifically, directional similarity was marginally affected by information structure while directionless similarity was not affected by information structure. There was no evidence that directionless similarity influenced user performance, whereas directional similarity had a marginally significant effect on the task completion time. An age effect was observed—younger adults had higher mental model similarity than older adults, and younger adults took less time and clicks to complete tasks than the older adults. The results of this study may give researchers an insight into the extent to which mental models affect performance.