Preliminary findings of an ethnographical research on designing accessible geolocated services with older people

Abstract

Older people run the risk of being socially excluded due to the numerous barriers they need to overcome when interacting with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to perform an ever-increasing number of daily activities. This paper presents preliminary findings of a rapid ethnographical study, conducted with around 90 older people during 1 month, which aimed to explore the potential of geo-located ICT services to foster social inclusion and support independent living. This paper discusses potential scenarios of use for technologies that have largely been overlooked in HCI research with older people, such as Google Maps; key aspects of how they (want to) use these technologies and relevant interaction barriers that limit their interactions with them. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.