User-Centered Design of a Mobile
Storytelling Application for Older
Adults
Pedro Miguel Camilo Tenreiro
Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering
Supervisor: Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues (PhD)
Second Supervisor: Paula Alexandra Silva (PhD)
Application for Older Adults
Pedro Miguel Camilo Tenreiro
Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering
Approved in oral examination by the committee:
Chair: José Magalhães Cruz (PhD) External Examiner: Teresa Romão (PhD) Supervisor: Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues (PhD)
Designing for older adults is different from designing for younger people. Many of the older adults have multiple slight disabilities, been difficult to design a system who cares about the set of different older adults and their different set of slight disabilities.
Older adults may face a reduction in personal contact mainly due to the loss of loved ones, mobility difficulties or geographical separation. Online social networks can be very important for older adults that often live far from their family and friends, helping them to stay connect with each other thus avoiding the isolation and solitude. Despite its benefits, older adults are still far from online social networks, because the user interfaces are not adapted to them or because their friends are not on the web social networks that the older adults can use.
Nowadays there are a wide range of mobile devices with web connection. Therefore the users are able to chose the devices that best suits them, considering its portability, screen size, input method, appearance and even device costs.
This study documents the analysis, design and evaluation of a mobile web application designed with older adults characteristics in mind and that connects to a popular social network.
User-Centered Design methodology was used to focus ourselves on older adults’ speci-ficities and therefore to create an adequate product that is easy to use by them. In this methodology, user research was used to understand the target audience of the project. User observations were done and a package of cultural probes were delivered to some older adults to gather their requirements and know more about their needs and characteris-tics. Then, low-fidelity prototypes of the storytelling application were created and iterated a number of times with feedback from user based evaluation. That evaluation was done through usability tests, performed with older adults in a day care center in Foco, Boavista (Porto, Portugal). Finally, according to the low-fidelity prototypes and its specifications, a colleague responsible for the development produced a working prototype. The working prototype was used to do a final evaluation of the application with the older adults in the day care center. The final evaluation was performed using two different mobile devices: one iPad (tablet) and one HTC mobile phone.
Desenhar para idosos é diferente de desenhar para pessoas mais jovens. Muitos dos idosos têm várias incapacidades, sendo assim difícil desenhar um sistema que se preocupe com um conjunto de diferentes idosos e o seu conjunto pequenas incapacidades.
Os idosos podem enfrentar uma redução nos contactos pessoais, devido principalmente à perda de entes queridos, dificuldade de mobilidade ou separação geográfica. As redes sociais online podem ser importantes para os idosos que vivem longe da família e amigos, ajudando-os a se manter conectados uns com os outros evitando assim o isolamento e solidão. Apesar dos benefícios, os idosos ainda estão longe das redes sociais online, porque as interfaces de utilizador não estão adaptadas a eles ou então porque os seus amigos não estão nas redes sociais que os idosos podem usar.
Hoje em dia existe uma grande variedade de dispositivos móveis com ligação à web. Desta forma os utilizadores podem escolher o dispositivo que melhor lhes convier, con-siderando a portabilidade do mesmo, o tamanho do ecrã, o método de input, a aparência e ainda os custos do dispositivo.
Este estudo documenta a analise, desenho e avaliação de uma aplicação móvel para a web desenhada com as características dos idosos em mente e que os liga a uma popular rede social.
A metodologia User-Centered Design foi usada para nos concentrarmos nas particular-idades dos idosos e assim para criar um produto adequado e fácil de eles usarem. Nesta metodologia, foi feita pesquisa sobre o utilizador para perceber a população algo do pro-jecto. Foram feitas observações do utilizador e entregue um pacote de cultural probes para recolher os seus requisitos e perceber mais sobre as suas necessidades e característi-cas. Depois, foi criado um protótipo de baixa fidelidade do projecto e iterado várias vezes com informações recolhidas de avaliações baseadas no utilizador. Esta avaliação foi feita através de testes de usabilidade realizados com idosos num centro de dia no Foco, Boav-ista (Porto, Portugal). Finalmente, de acordo com os protótipos de baixa fidelidade e as suas especificações, um colega, responsável pelo desenvolvimento da aplicação produziu um protótipo funcional. O protótipo funcional foi usado para fazer a avaliação final da aplicação com os idosos no centro de dia. A avaliação final foi realizada usando dois dispositivos móveis diferentes: um iPad (tablet) e um telemóvel HTC.
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation and Goals . . . 3
1.2 Contribution . . . 3 1.3 Thesis Outline . . . 4 2 Literature Review 5 2.1 Introduction . . . 5 2.2 Older Adults . . . 5 2.2.1 Age-related Changes . . . 6 2.2.2 Isolation . . . 9
2.2.3 Relation with Technology . . . 9
2.3 Life Storytelling . . . 11
2.3.1 Perpetuator of Legacy . . . 11
2.3.2 Importance to Promote the Well-being . . . 12
2.4 Online Social Networks . . . 13
2.4.1 Benefits . . . 14 2.5 Related Projects . . . 15 2.5.1 Mobile Storytelling . . . 15 2.5.2 Small Histories . . . 16 2.5.3 Memoria de Muller . . . 17 2.6 Summary . . . 17 3 Methodology 19 3.1 Introduction . . . 19 3.2 User-Centered Design . . . 20
3.2.1 Specifying the Context of Use . . . 22
3.2.2 Specifying the User Requirements . . . 23
3.2.3 Designing Solutions . . . 28
3.2.4 Evaluating the Design . . . 31
3.3 Novel Devices . . . 33
3.4 Summary . . . 33
4 Mobile Storytelling Analysis and Prototype 35 4.1 Introduction . . . 35
4.2 Analysis . . . 35
4.3 User Interfaces Prototypes . . . 38
4.3.2 View Stories . . . 43
4.3.3 Create Story . . . 48
4.3.4 View Friends and Family . . . 53
4.3.5 Final Prototypes . . . 54
4.4 Summary . . . 61
5 Evaluation of the Working Prototype 63 5.1 Introduction . . . 63
5.2 Final Usability Test . . . 63
5.3 Discussion . . . 65
5.4 Summary . . . 67
6 Conclusions 71 References 73 A Usability Tests 79 A.1 Usability Test 1 . . . 79
A.2 Usability Test 2 . . . 84
A.3 Usability Test 3 . . . 91
A.4 Usability Test 4 . . . 98
A.5 Usability Test 5 . . . 107
A.6 Usability Test 6 . . . 115
B Submited Papers 123 B.1 Interact 2011 . . . 123
2.1 Social networking use continues to grow among older users . . . 14
2.2 ShareTable elements . . . 15
2.3 Two ShareTable activities between parent and child . . . 16
2.4 Small Histories. Example of a life history with image and text. . . 17
3.1 ISO 9241-210 (2010) Human-centered design for interactive systems [Par]. 21 3.2 Example of one activity observed in the day care center where the older adults built some postcards. . . 24
3.3 Cultural Probes Package delivered to the older adults . . . 25
3.4 Sample of two delivered postcard — front and back . . . 26
3.5 Sample of two delivered story card — outside and inside of the card . . . 26
3.6 Sample of a delivered empty paper . . . 27
3.7 The delivered photo camera . . . 27
3.8 Sample of some paper prototypes . . . 30
3.9 Sample of some cards used in card sorting . . . 30
3.10 The used wireframe . . . 31
4.1 One received postcard . . . 36
4.2 Initial Use Case Diagram . . . 37
4.3 Card sorting for main menu . . . 39
4.4 Main menu prototype . . . 40
4.5 Group of icons for the View Stories button . . . 41
4.6 Group of icons for the Share Story button . . . 41
4.7 Group of icons for the View Friends and Family button . . . 42
4.8 Main menu prototype updated and with the wireframe . . . 42
4.9 View stories menu prototype . . . 43
4.10 Group of icons for the View Comments button . . . 44
4.11 Group of icons for the View Received Stories button . . . 44
4.12 Group of icons for the View Sent Stories button . . . 45
4.13 Group of icons for the first button of the view stories menu . . . 45
4.14 View stories menu prototype without the first button and with the chosen icons . . . 46
4.15 Final view stories menu prototype . . . 46
4.16 Main menu prototype updated with the new button . . . 47
4.17 View news menu prototype . . . 47
4.18 Share story menus . . . 49
4.20 Group of icons for the Video button . . . 50
4.21 Group of icons for the Voice button . . . 50
4.22 Group of icons for the Photo button . . . 50
4.23 Group of icons for the Share with All button . . . 50
4.24 Group of icons for the Share button . . . 51
4.25 Updated share story menus . . . 52
4.26 Menu to insert additional information about the older adults status . . . . 52
4.27 Menus to insert additional informations about the older adults status . . . 53
4.28 Menus to insert additional informations about the older adults status . . . 55
4.29 Final Use Case Diagram . . . 55
4.30 Results from the Usability Test 7 . . . 57
4.31 Story of Bruno Gonçalves . . . 58
4.32 Set of pictures to be chosen by the older adult . . . 59
4.33 Share story menu with inserted media (Image) . . . 59
4.34 Results from the Usability Test 8 . . . 60
4.35 Map with all menus . . . 61
5.1 Main menu seen from both iPad (tablet) and HTC Desire (mobile phone) . 64 5.2 Menus seen from the iPad to perform the first task (task A) . . . 65
5.3 News menu seen from the iPad . . . 66
5.4 Menus seen from the iPad to perform the first task (task D) . . . 66
5.5 Story with a photo seen from the iPad . . . 67
3.1 Table with the set of methods used in each UCD stage . . . 22
4.1 Table with the ten small labeled cards “How does he feel more frequently?” 53 4.2 Table with the ten small labeled cards “Where he is more frequently?” . . 54 4.3 Table with the ten small labeled cards “With whom he is more frequently?” 56
pt Point
dpi Dots per inch
HCI Human-Computer Interaction OSN Online Social Network UCD User Centered Design
ICT Information and Communication Technologies PD Participatory Design
Introduction
People have the need to communicate and interact with each other, sharing their experi-ences and knowledge. This need is often harder to satisfy due to the physical distance between those individuals, often caused by the need for traveling outside the family envi-ronment because of new job opportunities or marriage, other times due to the intensity of modern life that reduces the interaction time between family and friends, so-called tem-poral distance, other times this need is hard to satisfy due to family circumstances that depart the loved ones of each other – the social distance [VDGH, Che09]. Besides the reduction in personal contact, the older adults also face several age-related changes like social, psychological and physical problems.
All these changes and issues that make the elderly differ from other age groups, com-plicates their information and communication technologies (ICTs) usage, however they are using the technologies each time more, particularly Online Social Networks (OSNs) because they start to understand the importance and the benefits of using these social networks. Indeed OSNs could help older adults to promote their well-being by allowing them to communicate with their friends and family even when they are far away from each other.
Besides OSNs, the older adults can benefit from life storytelling sharing their legacy and life experience with their grandchildren, their relatives or even with their friends [San]. Therefore this thesis presents a solution that tries to solve the older adults’ isolation and solitude problem. This solution bring together the life storytelling and the OSNs, allowing the older adults to share their life stories with their friends and family. The story can be shared with all of his friends and relatives, posting it in own user’s wall or posting the story in the wall of his friend or relative sharing the story only with that person.
It’s important to take into account the older adults’ difficulties and problems particu-larly their physical changes such as vision impairments and mobility difficulties. Those problems may differ from an older adult to another, making it difficult to design a suitable
system for them [Gre]. Trying to solve this problem we decided to add to OSNs and sto-rytelling, mobile devices allowing the user to choose his preferred device that best suits him to use the application.
In order to address the specific needs and characteristics of older adults, our work fol-lowed a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methodology named User-Centered Design (UCD).
This thesis addresses the design of a storytelling application for the elderly that aims to fill the gap between their need to tell their life stories and the lack of communication means due to their ever more common separation from family and friends, not only to pro-mote their relationship with their friends and family but also to avoid the consequences of the decrease of interaction such as isolation and lack of interest in their lives, thus contributing to their well-being. Mostly, old adults tell their adventures and life experi-ences to their grandchildren so that they can therefore provide lessons of life showing, for example, what they must do to survive in difficult life circumstances [San, Tre].
Following an UCD’s methodology we started by doing some user research, gathering the older adults requirements and analyzing their characteristics. Then, based on the re-quirements gathered, we started designing the application using paper prototypes. These paper prototypes were used to perform usability tests with older adults in order to under-stand its main problems and the needed changes to ensure that they could underunder-stand and use the storytelling application.
All the usability tests (see Appendix A) have been performed with older adults from the day care center of Foco, at Boavista (Porto, Portugal). The center currently hosts about 25 older adults, with an average age of 75. Health problems are common amongst them — we have registered 3 persons with Alzheimer, one with Parkinson, many with mobility impairments and most of them with earing or vision limitations.
Because UCD is a iterative process we could specify and improve some requirements during the design and evaluation process, to make the application more suitable for the older adults. The main goals and some specification of the application, updated during the design, are:
• Allow older adults to share their life stories with their family and friends. Those stories could be: only text, image, sound or video; or even a combination of text with video, with sound or with image;
• Receive and send comments about the shared stories; • List all friends;
Secondary objectives to this application are to allow the inclusion of meta-data in each story. The meta-data includes information about the older adult’s status so he can be monitored and helped by their friends and relatives if something is going wrong with him. This status information shows where he is, with whom he is and how does he feel.
This thesis was developed in a joint collaboration between Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, represented by Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues, PhD, and Fraunhofer Portugal, under supervision of Paula Alexandra Silva, PhD and is the work of Pedro Miguel Tenreiro in order to achieve his master’s degree.
1.1
Motivation and Goals
The main goals for this thesis are to search and to analyze in which ways older adults can tell their life stories to their friends and family even in the distance using mobile devices and design a suitable application for them, thus we hope to contribute to the well-being of the older adults and to enable them to re-establish their bonds with these people.
The work on dedicated applications for older people is not yet deeply explored. The marketing of technology is often focused on younger people [Age]. Through working with older adults we could collect knowledge about their needs, characteristics, and re-lated topics. This is a good opportunity to the future since some studies shown that the number of older adults is growing at a fast pace: it’s expected that 21% of the world pop-ulation by 2050 will be old adults – comparing to 10% in 2000 [who10]. A research also reveals that the use of technology by older adults, such as online social networks (OSNs), is increasing over the past years [Mad10].
Besides the advantage of working with older adults, the usage of OSNs could also bring several advantages to be used in the future not only for older adults but also for the general population. The OSN will play an important role in future personal and commer-cial online interaction [MMG+].
1.2
Contribution
This thesis presents a set of UCD methods used to design an application suitable to the older adults that shown to be appropriated to reach our goals.
The main contribution of this thesis is to present the used methods and their processes that led to the design of an application suitable for the older adults, helping the designers to design more easily their own applications for older adults.
1.3
Thesis Outline
This thesis is structured in six chapters.
The second chapter (2) presents the literature review, showing some of the older adults problems such as the age-related changes, isolation and relation with technologies. Then this chapter presents life storytelling as perpetuator of legacy and its importance to pro-mote the well-being; also present the benefits of the social networks for the older adults and some related projects.
On chapter (3) we present the methodology used in this thesis to design a application suitable for the older adults; and a review about the novel devices concerning HCI.
Chapter (4) presents the results of the analysis and the process that lead to the creation of the application’s prototype.
In the fifth chapter (5) we present the evaluation of the working prototype developed based on the design specifications and prototypes (chapter (4)).
Literature Review
2.1
Introduction
The design of a storytelling application for older adults requires an understanding of their specific needs and characteristics. It is also important to learn about existent technologies and how they may interplay in such type of application.
Beside older adults, the project focuses on life storytelling, online social networks (OSNs) and mobile devices. Thus it was necessary to learn about the existing technologies such as display sizes and input techniques, research about the online social networks and their disadvantages or benefits to older adults and understand the meaning of life storytelling and the benefits that it could provide to older adults.
Thus, in this chapter we reviews prior work on the age-related changes and the most relevant problems faced by older adults, such as the isolation and their relation with tech-nology. It also reviews related work concerning the use of technology for storytelling and discusses the role of online social networks (OSNs) for bringing people together and promoting social inclusion among the elderly.
2.2
Older Adults
Before start presenting the older adults’ characteristics and needs it is necessary to define “older adults”. Most of the developed world countries define old adults as people with 65 or more years old, however, there is no general agreement on the age at which a person becomes old [who10].
Gorman [Gor] says that the definition of older adult in many developed world coun-tries is not directly related with chronological time, in these councoun-tries the roles assigned to older people and in some times the loss of those roles accompanying physical decline, are more significant to define the older adult. Gorman’s states that “thus, in contrast to the chronological milestones which mark life stages in the developed world, old age in
many developing countries is seen to begin at the point when active contribution is no longer possible”. In an international study published in 1980, Glascock and Feinman [GF], define three main categories for characterizing the older adults: 1) chronological time; 2) change in social role like having grandchildren; 3) change in capabilities like invalid status or different physical characteristics.
In our work, we use the common definition for the old adult as a person over 65 years of age. It is also important to realize that the population aging is growing rapidly in most of the developed world countries and it is expected that in the few next decades this growth affects the entire world [Gar, Pin01]. Some researches show that the number of older adults is growing each time faster: it’s expected that 21% of the world population by 2050 will be old adults – comparing to 10% in 2000 [who10]. This population aging growth is a direct consequence of the accelerated decrease in mortality rates among the older adults since the 1950s and the decline of the global fertility [GG91, Gar, SFC04].
This section presents some changes and social factors associated with the elderly.
2.2.1 Age-related Changes
Often the elderly are seen as people with many limitations and problems, indeed old people are a very diverse age group and most of them has a tendency to decline in some abilities it is not several enough to cause problems in their lives. Most of the elderly people remain with their personalities relatively stable throughout their lives and they successfully adjusted themselves to the challenges of aging, having in most cases an active aging [Ass98].
Communication problems with the older adults are mostly due to hearing impairment and other physical problems. By losing their communication capabilities, the older adults are getting more limited and having more difficulties to communicate [Zim00].
“What’s important to remember about people over age 65 is that while many begin to experience some physical limitations, they learn to live with them and lead happy and productive lives” [Ass98].
Besides physical changes, older adults experience other age-related changes that may affect their lives such as: cognitive changes and psychological changes.
2.2.1.1 Cognitive Changes
Cognitive changes are related to mental process such as sensation, intelligence, language, thought [Fis09]. Sometimes, old adults’ long-term memory declines making it difficult, for example to remember about his youth [Ass98].
Another relevant cognitive change that affects older adults is the decrease of the work-ing memory (sometimes called short-term memory) [INdKP]. The workwork-ing memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information while working on it or until use it. With age the process of encode, store and retrieve information, affecting the learning of new in-formation, tends to be slower [Fis09]. The decline of the working memory affects the performance of everyday tasks.
Besides that, the decline effect observed on long-term memory is minimal when com-pared with the decline of the working memory on older adults.
Other memory impairment is the procedural memory. The procedural memory is the knowledge about how to execute a certain task. Older adults may experience difficulties developing new automatic processes in some domains and remembering activities not ex-ecuted for long time. [Fis09]. Most aspects of older adults’ language abilities remain strong; however, word-finding ability declines with age [Ass98]. Older adults have dif-ficulties comprehending words when connections between ideas are not made explicit, requiring inferences [Fis09].
Older adults also have attention impairments such as a limited capacity to process information. Older adults face difficulties when faced with the need to search for in-formation like buttons or other elements in a display, so they will have more difficulty distinguishing between important and non-important information if the number of dis-tractions increases [Rab]. According to [Fis09] older adults require more then a second to orient attention from one location to another.
Even with all the changes wisdom and creativity continue to the end of life [Ass98].
2.2.1.2 Physical Changes
According to The American Psychological Association [Ass98] most of the physical changes that affect old adults are: changes in vision, changes in hearing, physical dis-abilities and slow reactions.
The main aspects of vision changes are the difficulty to read small print, finding ob-jects, reading speed, seeing in dim light and changing focus between objects at different distances [Ass98]. Age is the more relevant factor of visual limitations or blindness. A familiar stereotype of an older adult is one who wears glasses [PM09]. Fish [Fis09] states that “if we live long enough, nearly all of us will have vision problems”. The eyes’ changes related to aging result in less light reaching the retina, yellowing of the lens, making blue a difficult to discern color [PM09].
The American Psychological Association [Ass98] talks about hearing difficulties oc-curring in elderly people, showing that 48 percent of men and 37 percent of women with more than 75 years old experience hearing difficulties. This difference between men
and women is usually attributed to the distinct noise they have been exposed at work [CS03]. Various estimates suggests that approximately 10% of all older adults suffer hearing losses, making it harder to interact with them [Fis09].
Most of older adults, like in the cognitive changes, have slow reactions but in this case has to do with the amount of time it takes to respond to features in the environment once they are detected. This kind of reaction is typically slower among older adults [Ass98]. Thus, it’s important to give them enough time to read and understand all the information and features presented to them.
Another physical change affecting some elderly is the physical disabilities that prevent them from performing many tasks. Thus these older adults need assistance with their everyday activities. Old adult users may experience changes in motor skills, including slower response times, declines in ability to maintain continuous movements, disrup-tions in coordination and balance, loss of flexibility, and greater variability in movement [Fis09]. Arthritis is also very common among older adults. Moving the fingers with pain will influence the older adults’ accuracy and speed to perform actions that require movement such as reach a button or write something [Cza97].
Small targets and moving interface elements are difficult for older people, and should be avoided [INdKP].
2.2.1.3 Psychological Changes
Depression is a typical emotion that affects older adults. This negative emotion is charac-terized by sadness, sense of loss and feelings of helplessness. Depression may be caused mainly by new limitations faced by older adults or even due to the loss of their loved ones [Ass98, apa93, Ste].
Older adults with depression tend to avoid socialization with their relatives and friends, closing themselves in their own houses. Stimulate the older adults to interact with people — talking, performing activities, walking around to know new people and so on — will help them to treat depression [Zim00].
Other important psychological change in older adults is the dementia. The American Psychological Association [Ass98] focus dementia as an important psychological change that affects between 5 and 7 percent of adults over age 65 and 30 percent of those with more than 85 years old. People with dementia may suffer from depression, anxiety and paranoia, leading to impairment in social function.
2.2.2 Isolation
Older adults are commonly forced after retirement to shift from a social and active life to a world of solitude [Che09, who10].
A study with US elderly citizens reveals that most retirees are staying at home and on-third of those aged 75 and older live alone [Ste]. In addition to that, daily conversations with their relatives becomes more difficult because of the family’s need to travel outside searching for new job opportunities or marriage, the so-called physical distance. Other times due to the intensity of modern life that reduces the interaction time between family and friends, so-called temporal distance, or even sometimes because of family circum-stances that depart the loved ones of each other — the social distance [VDGH, SFC04].
When the family travel outside they keep talking with their older adults however with less engagement [SFC04].
Quoting Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “One of the greatest challenges or losses that we face as older adults, frankly, is not about our health, but it’s actually about our social network deterioration on us, because our friends get sick, our spouses passes away, friends pass away, or we move” [Ste].
This isolation, the reduction of the social contacts or people available to talk with, causes in many older adults a feeling of solitude. This solitude refers to a state where the older adult wants to interact with other people, however their reality does not allow them [SFC04]. Enrolling them in day care centers where they can do activities and interact with other older adults, stimulating them to get out of their houses, could help those older adults avoiding solitude and the isolation.
2.2.3 Relation with Technology
Unlike younger people, the elderly have difficulties in adopting new technologies and software [SRG+].
Leonardi et al. paper [LMN+] identify some older adults’ difficulties with technolo-gies, addressing the main cause to the hardware and software designs that have not been conceived to suit them. Most of the designers do not considered older adults as active users of technology [Cza]. It’s not simple to design a solution to older adults because many of them have multiple slight disabilities, been difficult to design a system who cares about the set of different older adults and their different set of slight disabilities [Gre]. Thus many interfaces are designed without accommodating the needs of the older adults [Cza].
On the other hand Greengard [Gre] states that older adults don’t have any particularly aversion to technology, they are entirely receptive and they tend to avoid technologies not
only because the design but also because older adults do not understand their benefits, thinking that those technologies are not for them. The nature of their experience with computers, available training and support, ease of access and the type of applications that are available are also important causes to older adults’ receptivity to technologies [Cza].
The current generation of older adults grew up without computers and, therefore, have some difficulty in perceiving the value and usefulness the information and communication technologies (ICTs) has in their daily activities [SRG+]. Technology may improve the quality of life and independence of the older adults, augmenting their ability to perform a variety of tasks and access information and services [Cza]. Although when older adults perceive the potential of technologies they consider the investment of personal resources needed to use the technology too high [LMN+]. Leonardi ([LMN+] point out several characteristics that influence the distance between old adults and technology: usability, accountability, accessibility and acceptability issues.
“There are a lot of older people who have a lot of trouble with mobile phones. They simply can’t use a typical phone because the interface is confusing and the buttons are too small” Sara J. Czaja explains ([Gre] , p.20).
There are lacks of interest by designers to design products focused on old adults, they are much more concerned to design for younger age groups. Therefore most of the developed products becomes extremely hard to use by older adults.
“Most technology gives the impression of being designed by and for 24-year-old males. Little technology is sensitive to the needs and wants of 24-year-older peo-ple.” by Alan Newell, Dundee University ([Age], p.18).
Older adults still under-considered in the technology world and seen as “non techno-logical” persons [CPZ]. However they relationship with technologies is getting better and they are using them each time more, mainly because they start to understand their benefits in their daily lives.
Another aspect that influences the use of technologies by the older adults is the aes-thetic. Older Adults want technology equipment they happily live with because they are aesthetically pleasing. Elderly don’t want ugly equipment which would not looks out of place in their homes, hospitals. In a [Age] research shows that 70 percent of older adults – people aged 65 or more – never used technologies like internet. This research also shows that the older people aged 80 or more, who have low education qualifications, are more likely to use technology. Therefore 81 percent of people who are aged own a mobile phone, but for the group of people with more than 75 years old only 50 percent
uses mobile phone. Independent Age [Age] points out that most of the older adults don’t use technologies because they argue that they do not need them. Recognize the benefits of using technological equipment will be for many older adults the first step towards the use of technology.
2.3
Life Storytelling
Trentham [Tre] defines life storytelling as a process of share the story of a person life with others. These life stories may be an account of the life or life segments of a person [CK01]. Those stories include personal, social and cultural themes. The personal theme refers to a personal introduction from the teller to the listener, talking about important past events, personal needs and comparing the past with the present or even with an anticipated future [Lim06]. According to Lima [Lim06] the social and cultural themes refers the social context of the story, validating personal aspects and refers to the information and values shared through the storytelling.
Life storytelling can use elements like photos to exemplify some situation, so the story can be described more easily. In most cases life stories are told in a narrative processes that links past events to present events instead of introducing accounts in a chronological way [Tre].
There are many advantages of life storytelling, not only for the storytellers but also to the story listeners. The stories are important not only to understand the aging and the older adult that tell the story, but also to give a sense of meaning to the listeners [Vin93]. Ad-ditionally, life storytelling provides wisdom, humor, encouragement and stories between both individuals, and it’s important to promote the old adults’ well-being [Tre]. Life sto-ries also enables the tellers to build their own identity by manipulating their narratives of the past according to the present, answering questions like “What am I today?” [Lim06]. This auto-representation in a life story “emerges when we try to put what culture and lan-guage have crystallized from the past together with what we feel, wish and think about our present point in life” [TB86].
This section highlights the advantages of life storytelling for both story listeners and older adults – the storytellers – introducing the wisdom and lessons of life that are passed to new generations, and discusses the value of storytelling to promote the old adults’ well-being.
2.3.1 Perpetuator of Legacy
Beliefs, traditions and advices have been passed from generation to generation for thou-sand years through the storytelling. When old adults tell a story to other person, they make use of their wisdom to contribute to person’s life with lessons of life. Life stories
are important in an early stage of life because they may act as guidelines to the future, helping people to get more knowledge about life and know how to survive in difficult circumstances similar to those the storyteller has already [Lim06, San].
Life stories are older adults’ gifts that offer tales of great adventures, loves or tragedies they had when they were younger. These stories sometimes tell the reasons of certain choices and why things have happened the way they have, passing down to the next gen-eration – story listeners – the older adults’ wisdom [San]. Kivnick [Kiv] points out that the main functions of the grandparents with their grandchildren are to promote their growth with advices and education, work as a source of knowledge.
Those stories have also been used to pass society and family traditions from generation to generation [Lim06]. Sousa et al. [SFC04] describes the grandparents as windows to the family and society past saying that they can play an important roll in the lives of their grandchildren.
Future generations could benefit from those stories, however most of stories cannot be told because of grandparents that passed away and there was not enough time to pass all the life experience, or even because the family get departed. Thus it’s important to keep those stories for posterity on paper, audio tape, photo or video. In older cultures with an oral tradition, there is frequently one person designated as the keeper of the tales [Sto].
2.3.2 Importance to Promote the Well-being
Quoting Sacks [Car98]: “mentally healthy man is the one who can tell their story”. Sanders [San] says that reminiscence and life review, directly related to life story-telling, stimulates the brain, promote lifelong learning and lead the old adults to a healthy aging. Life storytelling allows older adults to interact with their family and friends, im-proving social interaction and avoiding the isolation, and imim-proving their self-esteem by giving their lessons of life, helping the story listeners and because they notice the impor-tance being given to their stories and their experiences [San].
Kivnick [Kiv] states that grandparents by educating and telling their life stories to their grandchildren relive previous educative experiences such as the education of their sons. The emotional involvement in providing daily care to grandchildren represents for many grandparents a new motivation for life [SFC04].
Another characteristic of life storytelling is the brain stimulation that happens when older adults need to remember their life’s past so they can tell their life stories thereby contributing to their well-being [San].
Sanders [San] points out other advantages of storytelling to promote the old adults’ well-being: life storytelling improves relation between both storyteller and story listeners
due to the interaction and socialization, reduces depression, increases sense of purpose and meaning, and increases life satisfaction.
2.4
Online Social Networks
The term social network refers to social relations between people who have some type of relationship or affiliation like friends, relatives, neighbors and so on [fCG08]. In this sense, online social network (OSN) can be defined as an online service that focuses on enabling communication and interaction between people who may have any kind of rela-tionship or share a common interest, lifestyle, and/or activity [Pet, fCG08, MMG+].
Additionaly, OSNs enable people to connect virtually anyone and anywhere with-out need to get with-out of their houses. However, studies have shown that OSNs do not remove them from their offline social networks, indeed support relationships and keep people in contact even when friends and relatives need to move away from each other [ECC, MMG+]. Compared with the traditional social networks, OSNs provide more op-portunities to people to participate in social activities [Che09].
There are hundreds of OSNs, with various different technologies and contexts, sup-porting a wide range of audiences [BE]. Quoting Alex Burmaster, author of the study and Communications Director across EMEA for Nielsen Online: “Social networking isn’t just growing rapidly, it’s evolving — both in terms of broader audience and compelling new functionality” [Che09]. In fact, the OSNs have gained significant popularity and became a global phenomenon with communities like Facebook, Youtube or Twitter, which are among the most popular social media services on the Internet [fCG08, MMG+].
In a OSN research report [fCG08] two significant factors for the popularity of OSNs were suggested: the first one is the networking factor itself with the ability to form dif-ferent networks with people who share such things as location, hobbies and so on; the second one is the users’ freedom to create and share content without needing to install and manage their own spaces unlike normal websites. With OSNs, users are able to do exactly as they wish including creating any relationship that they choose [fCG08].
The ease of usage of OSNs is growing each time more due to the new technologies that support and facilitates social networking such as mobile phones and the capability to allow third parties to develop their own applications for use of OSNs. Thus, more and more OSNs’ users are using them anywhere in their daily lives. The OSNs have attracted millions of users and are still attracting even more people of different ages [fCG08, BE]. As shown in Figure 2.1, in a 5-year range (September 2005 to May 2010) the OSN usage by older adults has grown from 5-16% to 26-86%, and even the older adults are using the OSN each time more [LPSZ10].
Figure 2.1: Social networking use continues to grow among older users
2.4.1 Benefits
Steinfatt [Ste], Santana et al. [SRG+] presents the OSNs as a way to older adults over-come the isolation brought on by aging. The use of OSNs can have benefits for older adults they provide a lifeline to those who are isolated and disengaged from family, friends and communities but also allow the older adults and younger people to learn and share experience, therefore strengthening family ties across generations [fCG08, Bro, GMF+].
Despite the great potential social networks have in bringing people close together, most social media services have not been designed with the elderly in mind, thus are poorly suitable for older adults, which justifies the limited adoption by this age group [Pin]. According to Chen [Che09], “online social networks typically exclude elderly”. One reason for this is that, unlike younger people, the elderly have difficulties in adopting new technologies and software because their physical and mental states have changed. However, nowadays, older adults are giving more importance to OSNs, acknowledging their benefits. In fact, according to Madden [Mad10] the engagement of older adults in social media services has doubled between April 2009 and May 2010 to 26%. This study points out three main reasons for this increased adoption of social networks by older adults: the first reason is the reconnecting with people from their past by finding them through common friends or groups; the second one is the capability to seek online support for those older adults suffering from chronic disease and finding someone to share their experience with; the last reason is the OSNs’ capability to create a bridge in generational gaps, facilitating communication of the older adults with other age groups.
Figure 2.2: ShareTable elements
2.5
Related Projects
This section introduces projects that have similar characteristics to our work, such as distance interaction allowing sharing personal life stories, books stories, family and older adults activities.
2.5.1 Mobile Storytelling
ShareTable is a media space which main concern is the interaction distance between par-ents and children. This system augmpar-ents an audiovisual connection using a video projec-tion of a table into another. The ShareTable system consists in two identical tables setups in different households. With table is integrated into workspace formed by an overhead camera that records all the activities over the surface of the table and a projector that displays on the surface the activities recorded and transmitted by the paired table. This system also allows video-conference so the persons using the paired tables can hear and see each other, using monitor, speaker, microphone and webcam as showed in Figure 2.2 [YCMD].
ShareTable enables parents, which are separated from their children due to business travels for example, to participate in their activities like school homework thereby reduc-ing the distance’s effects in the relationship with their children. Figure 2.3 shows two activities A and B, between both parent and child using the ShareTable. While activity A
Figure 2.3: Two ShareTable activities between parent and child
represents a worksheet, the activity B represents a board game. The left side of the Figure 2.3 shows the father’s view and right side the child’s view [YCMD].
2.5.2 Small Histories
Small Histories is a website that allows people to create and share life stories with other people all over the world. This website is different to those like blogs and media upload sites because it requires several steps before publishing a life story instead of blog that only requires one step – type into the text box and hit Submit.
Before start writing a life story it’s required to register and since it is still a prototype it’s necessary to send an email with the registration request. Registration allow us to upload items like photos, video, text, audio to a repository and then use those items to build the narrative of a life story. In the narrative construction process, Small Histories allows us to give the story a title and a description, to add the media items uploaded by somebody else or add our own items contained in our repository and to choose a presentation style for our life history.
Life stories enables the registered user to choose the way that his story will be pre-sented to other people, if anybody can see the life story or only registered people. Figure 2.4 shows an example of a life story published in Small Histories website that is available to everyone [Sch].
The choice of Internet as the project’s main base it’s justified by Schutt [Sch], by arguing that Small Histories’ aim is to respond to the tendency of Internet to encourage segregation and social fragmentation by enabling all the stories to be linked with each
Figure 2.4: Small Histories. Example of a life history with image and text.
other, through the inclusion of somebody else items in our own life stories. This choice also lie into the “proposition that the Internet can be deployed as a performance space, with tools made available for people to gather and unite fragments from the traumatic past, and present them to an online audience” ([Sch], p.1).
2.5.3 Memoria de Muller
The project memoria de muller is a tool that allows 50 years old women to create videos about their lives. With this tool women are able to document their life stories using personal photos, text, using also some background music and even their own voices to tell the stories as the photos are being displayed.
The main goal of this project is to help these women to know more about information and communication technologies (ICTs), making them fell more comfortable interacting with ICTs. By combining images, sounds and text, these ladies can record their own stories, as they say: “in a more durable format” [TVG].
Many women used memoria de muller not only to tell their personal life stories but also to share other stories such as: pay a tribute to their husbands, talking about his life; talk about the women of their family or even talk about their jobs [dPP, Fem, TVG].
2.6
Summary
This chapter presented the most important characteristics and problems affecting the older adults nowadays, which must be considered in the design of the storytelling applica-tion, these problems include their physical impairments, their cognitive and psychological changes and the isolation problem that affects the communication and relations with their friends and relatives.
The literature also reveal, that older adults like to share their life stories mainly because telling them to their friends and family, sharing their legacy, improves their well-being, specifically their self-esteem, social interaction and avoiding the isolation. Furthermore, this chapter highlights that the online social networks could help the older adults to over-come the isolation and solitude, enabling them to be in touch with their relatives and friends. Older adults seem eager to start using the OSNs to communicate with friends and family but might be reluctant to do so due to the complex design of existing social media services. This calls upon careful design of future applications, specifically intended to facilitate the social inclusion of older adults.
Methodology
3.1
Introduction
Interaction is everywhere. Products like pre-recording a TV program or photocopying an article require user interaction to carry out its tasks. When some of those products are being developed the main concerns are the functionality and, from an engineering perspective, if they do effectively work [PRS02]. Karray et al. [KASA] present two kinds of interactions: a simple interaction where the only concern is the functionality, for example the interaction of an electrical kettle do not need to be sophisticated since its only functionality is to heat the water, and a more complex interactions in terms of usability, for example a web site may be reduced in functionality, however, it must be complex enough in usability to attract and keep users .
The functionality of a system is essential to provide the services and actions to users, however, if the system cant be effectively used, those services and actions cannot be correctly provided: in Karray et al. words, most sophisticated machines are worthless unless they can be used properly by men ([KASA], p.138).
Besides functionality, usability is another restriction to the efficiency of a system. The usability of a system consists on the effective and easy use of the system to accomplish certain tasks or goals by a certain user. To get an efficient system there must be a proper balance between those two factors – functionality and usability [KASA]. Nowadays, according to Dix et al. [DFAB04] it is important that the user has some desire to use a system, so it can be used more effectively.
In order to create an adequate product to the characteristics of our target audience we used an Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design methodology - the used methodology and the method used to design the project’s application will be explained in this chapter.
“Human-Computer Interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, eval-uation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.” ([HBC+], p.5).
HCI is not just “how big should I make buttons?” it’s necessary to take into account several aspects like the importance of functionality and usability in the system, the users requirements and their characteristics of using computers. In their paper, Karray et al. [KASA] talk about three aspects that must be thoroughly thought in the interaction be-tween human and computer: 1) the physical level that focus the mechanisms of interaction between human and computer; 2) the cognitive level that are concern about the ways that the user can understand and interact with the system; and 3) the affective level that tries to make the interaction a pleasurable experience and affect the user in a way that he will continue using the system. Thus, HCI is used for understanding and designing of dif-ferent relationships between people and computer, including the limitations, capacities, tools, platforms of computers and the human errors, psychological and social aspects of different users [DFAB04, HRRS].
Besides the description of the used methodology and its methods, in this chapter we will review the novel devices and their importance nowadays, contextualizing them with the project.
3.2
User-Centered Design
In order to achieve the needs and interests of the users there are some user-centered ap-proaches used in the design process of a system [ND86]. There are several HCI method-ologies though two of them are particularly important: Participatory Design (PD) and User-Centered Design (UCD).
The idea of Participatory Design emerged in the eighties in Scandinavia [Kyn, PRS02]. Participatory Design — also known as Cooperative Design — is a design method that involves the user in the design process, bringing together the competence of users and designers, and allowing them to share knowledge of the application area. This share of information is crucial because much of the knowledge of the application area — also known as “tacit knowledge” — was only accessible to users. The main idea of PD is to include the users in the design as co-designers, moving the focus from discussions about system descriptions to cooperative actions, using prototypes to simulate and test work situations involving the system so the requirements and needs of the user can be achieved [Kyn].
Figure 3.1: ISO 9241-210 (2010) Human-centered design for interactive systems [Par].
User-Centered Design was introduced more or less at the same time as PD, through a book by Norman and Draper [ND86].
User-Centered Design — also known as Human-Centered Design — was the chosen design methodology for this project. This methodology unlike PD, the users doesn’t make part of the designer team, however, they are always kept in mind in the design process [PRS02, Fis09]. Norman and Draper say, in their book [Nor02], that UCD is a philosophy based on the needs and interests of users, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable.
UCD involves lots of information and analyses about the characteristics, needs and different types of interaction of the users that will influence the system’s design [HRRS]. As presented in Figure 3.1, UCD involves four essential activities which should be planned for and undertaken in order to incorporate usability requirements into the devel-opment process. These are:
• understand and specify the context of use • specify the user requirements
• produce design solutions to meet user requirements • evaluate the designs against requirements
Table 3.1: Table with the set of methods used in each UCD stage
UCD Stages Used Methods
Specify the Context of Use User Research Interviews
Specify the User Requirements
User Observations Cultural Probes
Focus Groups
Produce Design Solutions
Low-Fidelity Prototypes Card Sorting
Wireframe Evaluation Against Requirements Wizard of Oz
Think Aloud Protocol
In this context, we started planning a set of methods to be used in each stage of the UCD process, which we believe to be the most suitable to design for older adults (see Table 3.1).
In the first stage of the UCD iterative process we used user research to understand the target audience of the project. The user research was based on literature analysis and some informal interviews with social educators in a day care center. Then, in the second stage we performed user observation and delivered some cultural probes — cultural probes its an UCD method that will be explained later — to the older adults in the day care center. Based on the results of the first two UCD stages a low-fidelity prototype of the application have been created. This prototype was iterated a number of times with feedback from user based evaluation. In the next sections we will describe the techniques used during this work.
3.2.1 Specifying the Context of Use
The first stage of the UCD process addresses and identifies three important aspects: the characteristics of the intended users; tasks the users will perform; and the environment in which users will use the system [PRS02, usab].
In this initial stage we did some user research, mainly based on literature analysis; and also did informal interviews with some social educators in a day care center.
In this section we will explain the two techniques used to specify the context of use.
3.2.1.1 User Research
Before defining the user requirements it is important to know more about the users — older adults — “to find out what is currently happening” with them like: how they interact with other people, what they do in their daily life and so on [DFAB04].
Applying the method:
The literature analysis was mainly based on articles, books and other publications. It allowed us to understand the older adults needs, characteristics, how is their relation with technologies and what kind of things can help them to minimize their problems and satisfy their needs. The outcomes of the literature form the chapter 2.
3.2.1.2 Interviews
An interview can be broadly classified as structured, unstructured or semistructured [PRS02]. We performed unstructured interviews. The interviews that were made in a day care cen-ter in an atmosphere that was similar to the one of a normal conversations with social educators.
Applying the method:
These interviews were done to understand the everyday life of the older adults, their activities, what kind of conversations they normally have and with whom and also their main problems — impairments and diseases. Thus we could understand how the older adults environment is, their characteristics and interactions with other people.
3.2.2 Specifying the User Requirements
After identified the context of use, by understanding the older adults characteristics and needs, we needed to specify the user requirements to move forward into thinking about design [PRS02].
As stated by Preece et al. [PRS02] “a requirement is a statement about an intended product that specifies what it should do or how it should perform”. Indeed it was necessary to establish how the application would allow the older adults to share their stories or even what kind of stories or other messages they should be able to share. To do so we used some methods to gather information and then analyzed that information to define the user the requirements.
In this section we will introduce the methods used, their main goals and how we used them to gather informations to establish the user requirements.
3.2.2.1 User Observations
User observations consist of observing how users act in an environment where the ap-plication will eventually be used. Because it can be very difficult for humans, specially older adults, to explain what they do in their daily lives or even describe how they achieve
Figure 3.2: Example of one activity observed in the day care center where the older adults built some postcards.
a certain task. Observations involves spending some time with users as they go about their day-to-day tasks, observing what is being done in a natural context [PRS02].
The results gathered from this method can contribute to initial design specifications, reducing the number of iterations required in the last UCD stage — design evaluation [PM09].
Applying the method:
Our user observations have been made in a day care center with about 25 older adults with an average age of 75
The main goals of the user observations were to understand what kind of activities the older adults really do (see Figure 3.2), if they like to tell their own stories and receive feedback from the story listeners; and their daily difficulties.
3.2.2.2 Cultural Probes
Cultural probes are sets of simple artifacts (such as maps, postcards, cameras, or diaries) that are given to users to take away and to open and use in their own environment, and then to return the package to the researchers when they had finished with them [PRS02]. Those probes are used to record specific events, feelings or interactions in their usual environment without intrusion and to uncover aspects of culture and human interaction like emotions, values, connections, and trust [usaa, DFAB04]. Unlike user observation, the technique allows users to self-report, delivering informations that could be particularly useful in the design process [Gaf].
Figure 3.3: Cultural Probes Package delivered to the older adults
The primary proposes of the cultural probes study were to gain insight into what kind of informations the older adults like to share, with whom and if they like to write small or big stories.
Applying the method:
We delivered to older adults a set of probes (see Figure 3.3). This set of probes con-sisted in a package containing a variety of items: 12 postcards, 12 story cards, 10 empty papers, 1 photo camera, 1 pen, 1 manual.
The postcards (see Figure 4.1) had images on the front and lines in the back so they could write their messages and the addressee. The postcards were included in the cultural probes package to figure it out if the older adults write a lot or if they just use short sentences. Other goals of these post cards were to understand with whom the older adults would like to share and what they like to share — stories, thoughts, news or something else.
The story cards (see Figure 3.5) had a photo inside so the older adults could talk about that image. The main goals of the story cards included in the package were to figure it out if the older adults remember moments of their past with the card’s photos, if they like to write about those moments and what details they like to share — many details or only the more important ones.
Figure 3.4: Sample of two delivered postcard — front and back
Figure 3.6: Sample of a delivered empty paper
Some empty paper (see Figure 3.6) have been included in the cultural probes package allowing the older adults to share more information if they wish to, so we could under-stand if they like to share another kind of informations besides stories.
The photo camera (see Figure 3.7) have been included in the package to figure it out if the older adults like to photograph and share their moments. Later the photos taken were used to understand if the older adults remember the registered moments and if they like to write something about their photos.
The main goals of the included manual were to inform or remember the older adults about the package content, how many items are inside the package, and how and when
they should use each item.
When we delivered the cultural probes to the older adults groups, we explained them how should they use each item and that they should only use them when they feel com-fortable, so they do not feel forced to do the “homework”. Besides the explanation, we asked them to use the pen to write their names in each package and the date when they should return their packages.
The packages have been delivered to six older adults in the day care center who volun-teered to receive them and received 2 and 3 weeks later — we requested them to return the packages 2 weeks after the delivery. Secondarily the cultural probes helped us to define a focus group (see section 3.2.2.3) to be used in later stages of UCD.
3.2.2.3 Focus Groups
Focus groups are a method where the main emphasis is on collecting information which arises from the interaction between those involved in the focus group. The elements of that group can be used at various stages in an evaluation like usability tests [PM09, Dui].
Applying the method:
We used this technique to establish an older adult group with which we could have some group conversations about the application’s design and in a later stage do usability tests with them (see section 3.2.4).
3.2.3 Designing Solutions
After most of the user requirements have been established, we need to start designing the application. In this stage the designers suggest design solutions that should meet the requirements so, in a later stage, those designs can be tested with the users to figure it out if the requirements are met [PM09, Dui].
This section presents the techniques that we used to design solutions to be tested with the older adults and then delivered to Tiago Sousa, a fellow student who was responsible for the implementation of the application.
3.2.3.1 Low-Fidelity Prototypes
A prototype is a model of something to be further developed, and can be discussed be-tween designers, developers, customers and end-users. This method uses simple materials to create a paper-based simulation of an interface with the aim of exploring user require-ments [Par].
Prototypes are useful to do an early validation of the application and ideas with users, encouraging them to share needs and wishes for the final product. Besides that prototypes allow the designers to produce more visible results earlier, to improved collaboration and communication among developers, analysts and users and also to encourages reflection about the product to answer to design question [Neu04].
There are two main types of prototypes: low-fidelity prototypes and high-fidelity pro-totypes.
Low-fidelity prototypes are used for early and rapid design, just after requirements analysis, to help conceptualize and envision the interface at a high level. Normally the low-fidelity prototypes are rough sketch and have a little or none interactive functionality. The high-fidelity prototypes take to long to be built or to be changed, however these proto-types define look and feel of final product. The higher the fidelity the more representative is the prototype [ES].
Paper prototypes are one example of low-fidelity prototypes, these prototypes provide enough detail to perform an evaluation relating to the function and flow of the interface, but not the look [usaa].
Applying the method:
In this project we produced paper prototypes (see Figure 3.8) to bring ideas to life and then to test the prototypes with the older adults — all the produced prototypes are presented in the chapter 5.
Furthermore, when the ideas have been thought through and tested on paper, software prototypes have been created by the developer.
3.2.3.2 Card Sorting
“Card sorting is a quick, inexpensive, and reliable method, which serves as input into your information design process” [SW]
Card sorting techniques are used to analyze and explore the latent structure in an unsorted collection of information items, functions, statements or ideas [Par]. In a card sort session, participants are given a stack of cards with information to sort into categories that make sense to them [Hud].
Applying the method:
In our project card sorting (see Figure 3.9) was used to structure and decide some of the interface content according to older adults’ choices such as buttons’ names and icons.
Figure 3.8: Sample of some paper prototypes
Figure 3.10: The used wireframe
3.2.3.3 Wireframe
A wireframe is an architectural representation of a user interface object like a screen, window, dialog box, or Web page. It provides a sense of the general layout of controls, text, and graphics on a user interface object and often provide some description of the task flow in the object [usaa].
Applying the method:
We used wireframe (see Figure 3.10) to complement with the paper prototypes so the older adults could grab the prototypes more easily than a simple paper. We also used wireframe so the older adults could identify the prototypes as something like a mobile device.
3.2.4 Evaluating the Design
This is an essential step which assesses whether user and organizational objectives and needs have been met and provides feedback which can be used to improve design. This process includes one or more usability tests where participants perform specified tasks with the product, while being watched by one or more observers [Fis09]. To evaluate the design we used two techniques with older adults in a day care center: Wizard of Oz and the Think Aloud Protocol.
The day center of Foco, at Boavista (Porto, Portugal) hosts about 25 older adults, with an average age of 75. Health problems such as mobility impairments and earing or vision limitations, are common amongst them. Besides that we have registered 3 persons with Alzheimer, one with Parkinson. In the day care center some social educators helped us to interact with the older adults, telling us the main problems of each older adult and the common reactions of some of them when asked to do something.
Older adults are enthusiastic participants in the design evaluation process and enjoy the opportunity to provide their perspectives and influence design decisions [PM09].
In this section we will explain the two methods used to evaluate the design, using the paper prototypes and the older adults in the day care center.
3.2.4.1 Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz technique was coined by Kelley in the eighties [Kela]. The name "Wizard of Oz" comes from the famous story "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". In that story, an ordinary man hides behind a curtain and pretends to be a powerful wizard (The Wizard of Oz) using sound effects [Kelb, Mol].
With this technique the designers simulate reactions from the system with users to study their expectations and requirements, by gathering actual human responses to the system [usaa, Neu04].
The Wizard of Oz can be used to find out the kinds of problems people will have with the devices, techniques and linguistic or visual affordance [usaa].
Applying the method:
In our project, we used this method to simulate the system functionalities, using the wireframe and the paper prototypes. In the navigation tests, using the Wizard of Oz, the users press the prototyped button, then we hid the current menu and present the corre-sponding menu.
3.2.4.2 Think Aloud Protocol
Think aloud protocol can be used to evaluate systems by making use of the paper proto-types [DFAB04]. Using this method a test participant thinks aloud while interacting with the product. The participants talk about what they are doing and why they are doing. This method circumvents reliance on explanations that offered concerning the problems the user encountered using the system [Fis09].
