Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Application Suite for Enhancing the Social Inclusion and Well-Being of Seniors

Informatics

Ilia Papa¹  Christos Goumopoulos¹  Andreas Stavrianos² 

[1] Information & Communication Systems Engineering Department, University of the Aegean, Samos 832 00, Greece;School of Science and Technology, Hellenic Open University, Patras 263 35, Greece;

关键词: Ambient Assisted Living;    human-centered design;    well-being;    social inclusion;    technologies and ageing;    mobile computing;    pilot study;    ubiquitous computing;    service-oriented architecture;   

DOI  :  10.3390/informatics4030015

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Smart mobile devices, due to their ubiquitous nature and high level penetration in everyday life, can be a key component of an Ambient Assisted Living system to improve the quality of life of older people. This paper presents the development and evaluation of Senior App Suite, a system created for assisting seniors’ personal independence and social inclusion. The system integrates mobile computing combined with web and service-oriented technologies to offer a mobile application suite that seniors can easily use to access services, spanning various application areas such as social networking, emergency detection and overall well-being. The research hypothesis is that using such services can be beneficial for decreasing social isolation. There is quantitative indication that this assumption is realistic backed up also by the qualitative analysis from the user’s feedback derived during a pilot study (n = 22) suggesting that Senior App Suite can motivate people in new activities, maintain connection with social ties, give joy and self-confidence, and increase the frequency and quality of social interactions. Our contribution is a detailed methodology spanning the research, design, development, and evaluation of a solution that aims to improve the quality of life of seniors while addressing open issues identified in related initiatives.

【 授权许可】

Unknown