Identifying Elderly People's Needs

Identifying elderly people's needs

for communication and mobility

Sauli Tiitta

HIIT (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology), Finland

sauli.tiitta@hiit.fi

Keywords

Elderly people; communication; mobility; participatory observation; narratives, user

needs; security and group coherence.

Abstract

The Finnish parliament's future commission has listed challenges in elderly peoples

lives that could be overcome using new technology. The two most important inhibiting

factors affecting the quality of life of elderly people were identified as solitude

and immobility (O Kuusi, 2001). The purpose of this research is to identify everyday

motivational needs concerning communication and mobility of elderly people and

present a categorization that can be exploited when designing information appliances

to overcome these difficulties.

Qualitative user research was used for identifying the phenomena typical in

elderly people lives. Out of all observed phenomena the ones that were related to

the elderly people's habits for communication and mobility were selected. These

phenomena were documented in the form of narratives, which were individually

analysed in order to uncover the motivational needs that resulted in the observed

phenomenon. An iterative process was used to group phenomena with similar

motivational needs in the same category. The process resulted in a categorisation

describing the most likely motivational needs that should be taken into account when

designing information appliances for the elderly.

Introduction

When elderly people are getting older they spend more and more time at home and

surrounding areas. They don't meet people anymore living far from them. That way

their contacts with people get narrower. Face-to-face communication and mobility are

in that sense hand-in-hand. When mobility decreases face-to-face communication also

decreases. Technology should not encourage the elderly to stay at home but to be

mobile in order to keep up their physical condition.

The Finnish parliament's future commission's requirements for technology aimed at elderly people, the two most important criteria being:

Ð'* Technology should contribute positively in communication between elderly people

and with other age groups.

Ð'* Technological solutions should contribute in travelling outside home and daily activities

at home and near home.

The commission has stated that solitude and immobility are the most important

shortcomings that technology should attempt to alleviate (O Kuusi, 2001).

Here are examples to show that researchers have started to see the importance of

social and mobility needs. The importance of elderly people's social, emotional and

environmental factor needs have been found in recent researches (J abascal, 2001; KZ

Haigh, J Phelps and CW Geib, 2002; T Hirsch et al., 2000 and JA Jore, 2001). They

argued that designing eldercare technologies to address all these factors lowers social

barriers. Nokia Mobile Phones and Work Science Laboratory in Oulu, Finland found

out that the most beneficial services for elderly in the future are those by which

they can maintain their social relationships, health and ability to live at home. Various

telemedical, security and alarm system services will be important (M Mikkonen, S

VÐ"¤yrynen, V Ikonen, MO and HeikkilÐ"¤, 2002).

It has been said that elderly are not interested in technology and don't want to use

it at all. The elderly have adopted technical systems slower than others. Also interfaces

haven't been designed for them with small buttons or screens. But that doesn't mean

they wouldn't be interested in learning to use new gadgets and computers (J Abascal,

2001 and MD Brouwer-Janse et al.., 1997). Elderly housing and health care centre in

Oregon is a good example that the elderly can be interested in latest technology.

In elderly housing pervasive computing has been used to help staff caregivers and

elderly residents lives. The facility's networked sensors let staff for example identify

residents who might need immediate care. First results have been very encouraging

(V Stanford, 2002).

Why do we need to find needs for elderly people?

Designing services and products using communication and mobile technology for

elderly people is not easy. Information appliances for devices and services using

technology are still in the beginning. There are numerous possibilities technology

can utilise. If designers try to design technological products and services without

first seeing the need for them it