Participatory design: How to engage older adults in participatory design activities

Lilit Hakobyan, Jo Lumsden, Dympna O'Sullivan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Ongoing advances in mobile technologies have the potential to improve independence and quality of life of older adults by supporting the delivery of personalised and ubiquitous healthcare solutions. The authors are actively engaged in participatory, user-focused research to create a mobile assistive healthcare-related intervention for persons with age-related macular degeneration (AMD): the authors report here on our participatory research in which participatory design (PD) has been positively adopted and adapted for the design of our mobile assistive technology. The authors discuss their work as a case study in order to outline the practicalities and highlight the benefits of participatory research for the design of technology for (and importantly with) older adults. The authors argue it is largely impossible to achieve informed and effective design and development of healthcare-related technologies without employing participatory approaches, and outline recommendations for engaging in participatory design with older adults (with impairments) based on practical experience.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)78-92
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Design approaches
  • Inclusive design
  • Mobile technology
  • Older adults
  • Participatory design

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