General information
Code: L5-7626
Period: 1.3.2016 - 28.2.2019
Range on year: 1.36 FTE | 2016
Project leader at FDV: izr.prof.dr. Vesna Dolničar
Co-financiers: ARIS, SmartCom
Research activity: Social sciences
Abstract
The need of older adults to live at home for as long as possible, increasing costs of long-term care (leading to unsustainable health and social care systems), and burdened informal carers can nowadays no longer be ignored. These characteristics of an ageing society are pressuring Slovenian policy makers, industry, researchers, and civil society organizations to develop and mainstream ICT-based assistive services (ASs). Despite the growing body of evidence about ICT-based ASs’ positive effects, Slovenia is in its infancy regarding the adoption of smart solutions for active and healthy ageing (AHA).
The project develops an integrated theory-driven and evidence-based approach in order to stimulate the uptake of technological solutions for AHA for a “triple-win” outcome: 1) improved well-being of older adults and their informal carers; 2) financial gains for the health and social care sectors; 3) new market opportunities for providers of ASs.
The project will address these problems by pursuing three main aims:
Understanding how an usable, sustainable and affordable ASs on a cloud-based platform for the prolonged independent living and AHA of older people can be (re)designed to consider both the needs of older adults and their informal carers;
Testing and evaluating the ASs in a realistic environment involving care receivers and caregivers in their home environment;
Outlining a methodological approach that would allow the active involvement of end-users throughout all stages of the R&D of ASs.
The project will include a study of the redesign and exploitation of a cloud-based home care AS (CareSignal), developed by the co-funding organisation, which will comprise of various components of telecare and telehealth.
The project breaks new ground by developing:
An innovative socio-technical model to evaluate acceptance factors of care receivers and caregivers in relation to the (re)design of ICT-based ASs for independent living at home, which could be used for generating new design solutions and setting new deployment guidelines for ASs. This approach will result in a comprehensive understanding of older adults' and their informal carers' needs, abilities, social support, motivations and values, their perspective on costs and benefits, and the perceived quality of the ICT-based ASs, all of which are relevant to their willingness to accept ASs.
A novel methodological approach based on the idea of iterative design that will consider older adults and their informal carers and will be validated with extensive user involvement throughout the R&D process. Such a participatory approach will facilitate a move from technology-driven to user-centered design to R&D of ICT-based ASs. Needs and perceptions shall be studied in three stages: 1) eliciting user needs and generating general design ideas; 2) evaluating existing AS in lab settings and real environments; 3) generating specific redesign ideas, culminating in suggestions for new or improved functionalities and characteristics of the CareSignal.
The project brings together over two decades of internationally recognized interdisciplinary research by the project team in areas of social informatics, methodology, including mixed-methods data collection and evaluation designs for elderly, gerontechnology, experience with large international empirical digital inclusion and AHA (FP5, FP6, FP7, Erasmus+, LLP, Interreg) projects, as well as R&D of ASs, online learning games and mobile applications for older adults.
The core research team will cooperate with two researchers from University of Maribor, who have participated in more than 60 projects and are internationally recognized specialists in HCI and User Experience for older adults and impaired persons, as well as with the co-funding organization Smart Com, a Slovenian leading high-tech company with a strong R&D and commercial interest in the application of ICTs for AHA, which has been involved in numerous (inter)national R&D proje
The phases of the project and their realization
WP1: PROJECT MANAGEMENT: WP1.1: Project administration - WP1.2: Coordination of research activities - WP1.3: Preparatory research activities // Deliverables: D1.1, D1.2, D1.3: Administrative project reports - D1.4: Website for internal communication of the project group and archiving project materials - D1.5: Detailed research plan - D1.6: Online database of references and existing research - D1.7: Project’s Advisory Board membership - D1.8: Copyright agreement on the project results. WP2: DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH: WP2.1: A state-of-the-art review - WP2.2: Overview of trends - WP2.3: Development of the situation-specific conceptual framework - WP2.4: Development of user involvement methods and toolkits // Deliverables: D2.1: A state-of-the-art review - D2.2: ASs overview - D2.3: Conceptual framework - D2.4: User involvement methods and toolkits. WP3: ELICITING USER NEEDS AND GENERATING GENERAL DESIGN IDEAS: WP3.1: Eliciting user needs - WP3.2: Generating general design ideas for ICT-based AS // Deliverables: D3.1: Report on user needs - D3.2: Report on generating design ideas for active ageing and development of personas. WP4: EVALUATION OF EXISTING AS AND GENERATING SPECIFIC REDESIGN IDEAS: WP4.1: Usability testing of CareSignal - WP4.2: Development of novel use cases - WP4.3: Evaluation of novel use cases, generating specific redesign ideas and use cases refinement // Deliverables: D4.1: Report on usability testing of CareSignal - D4.2: Initial novel use cases of CareSignal that foster active ageing - D4.3: Report on group validation sessions and refined novel use cases of CareSignal. WP5: DISSEMINATION OF THE RESULTS: WP5.1: Dissemination within scientific community - WP5.2: Dissemination to the industry, to policy makers and to general public - WP5.3: Workshop and events for the promotion of use of ASs for independent living at home among older adults.
Research Organisation
http://www.sicris.si/public/jqm/prj.aspx?lang=eng&opt=2&subopt=403&hits=1&id=10049&search_term=L5-7626
Researchers
http://www.sicris.si/public/jqm/prj.aspx?lang=eng&opt=2&subopt=402&hits=1&id=10049&search_term=L5-7626
Citations for bibliographic records
http://www.sicris.si/public/jqm/prj.aspx?lang=eng&opt=2&subopt=400&hits=1&id=10049&search_term=L5-7626
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