Good example of bridging the generations

AgeUK Barnet has teamed up with schools and colleges in Mill Hill, North Finchley, East Finchley, Colindale and Hendon to bring sixth formers together with older adults who would like to learn more about using computers. The free sessions are run at the AgeUK centres in Hendon and East Finchley. I look forward to hearing about the outcome and success of those sessions in the future. See more about the MiCommunity project here

Facebook blocked the social suicide machine

This article may appear a bit dated, but I think it's still apt! Read the article here The recent Oxford Internet survey showed that there is a increasing number of people who are not interested and reject taking part in the 'online world'. With this article I'm also referring to a previous post about the social suicide machine since I looked for official reviews on this service. The social suicide machine deletes your facebook / twitter / linked profile for you (well since 2010 not Facebook anymore), but it doesn't delete it only - the suicide machine shows in a animated way how you loose your online friends and contacts and this might give you some pleasure! I watched the intro movie about the suicide machine and thought there was one big flaw the way the creator of the suicide machine put things. He said: "Online experience is absolutely no substitute for realtime experiences, all those images, youtube links and tweets are leaving us feeling empty". I support the view that online contact can't replace face-to-face contact, but is there not an argument for realtime online experience, for example where a family video calls another family over skype at Christmas?

KIT - keeping in touch

On 30th March 2010 I met with Jeremy from the KIT project. KIT stands for "keeping in touch" and is a project investigating how computer use might help older people to stay in touch in friends and family. Jeremy is the man who roadshows the KIT equipment& functionality in older people and care homes and gets the residents to try it out.

I meet Jeremy at the Wellesley Road Home for Older People in North London. He leads me into the communal area where KIT is set up. I see a colourful keyboard and a monitor showing 8 big buttons on the left-hand side (see photo). The 8 big buttons are the main activities you can do with 'Big Screen live' which is the software for KIT. Big screen live allows you to do the most important computer activities and has removed all other additional functionality to avoid complexity and distraction when an older person is using the system.
Jeremy demonstrates the system to me. The residents of the home have an email set up on the system and their inbox is represented by a number rather than by their names in order to maintain privacy. He also points out some niggles of the system, such as having to click into the message field when composing an email rather than the cursor appearing automatically or the use of the word "store" instead of "save" which had caused some confusion in the past.

I had seen other 'simplified' computer systems before, this one seemed to be similar to SimpliCITy (see previous blog entry), but it was even more interesting for me to learn from Jeremy how he got the residents involved.

Jeremy takes me on a tour in Wellesey Road. We walk past the corridors and various communal kitchens, single rooms and hallway seating areas. I'd guess that the people I see are roughly around 80 years and older, some are more healthy than others. While moving through the home I see people walking around, some resting, some watching television, some having a cup of tea and some are in their rooms with the door ajar. I notice that the conversations I hear are mainly care personal speaking to an older resident or Jeremy greeting or chatting to the residents, and there is very little interaction or conversation between themselves.

Jeremy shares his experience of getting older people interested in trying out KIT. He points out how it's important to have a chat with the person first, to build up a relationship and to know their interests (e.g. movies, gardening etc). On the second visit you introduce them to the 'machine' playfully, by showing them something that would be of interest to them e.g. a movie on youtube with their favourite actor.

"There are 3 challenges when working with older people - you need to ask:
1. Are they asleep?
2. Do they feel alright?
3. And then: Do they want to come to the communal room and …
Never ever use the word computer!… say: do you want to watch a little movie?"

Jeremy's experience was if you used the word computer, they switched off and were not interested.

He further explained that once you had got their interest and they were sitting in front of KIT you could show them how to send messages. Sending and receiving photos was particularly enjoyable for them.

I observed the try-out of the system where Jeremy 'drove' the system and had two female residents watching him. They didn't really want to get their hands onto KIT but enjoyed what Jeremy showed them.
Jeremy explained that when a resident gets an email address of a relative becomes easier to show the benefits of KIT, but getting the email address takes some time. The KIT system usually stayed for 2 weeks in a older people home before it was either purchased by the home or moved to another site for trying out.

I would like to thank Jeremy for allowing me to join him on his demonstration and I would like to thank the residents of Wellesley Road who took part.

More info about KIT

Race Online 2012

They had their manifesto published in July 2011 which I only just read. Generally I agree that there would be a benefit for people to 'being connected', but I don't necessarily agree with the benefits they list: education, employment and improved government efficiency which effectively means reducing telephone or face-to-face contact - the latter basically a cost cutting exercise.

The report further lists the benefits for older people as: "Getting older people online is a cost effective way of improving their standard of living." - they give examples of how a household can save money by using online services and how older people can connect socially by going online.
However, they don't seem to mention anywhere in the report the troubles one can have with a computer (hardware and software) as well as the problems one can have with password management, or the security of using e.g. banking services in a public space like a library.

Read the report here

Ofcom report Media Lives

Reading the most recent Ofcom report on Media Lives which is based on a small number of qualitative interviews with people but carefully selected to be UK representative, it surprised me that the fundamental motives and barriers to acquire media literacy skills have remained largely constant (since the survey started in 2005).

Around social networking sites it reports: "As the use of Facebook matures among our participants, the related privacy issues are becoming more subtle and complex.Users are now more aware and careful about what information they share, and generally more cautious about adding people as friends than they once were. Most commonly, their concerns are about the dangers of certain individuals getting to see sensitive information (e.g. employers, family members), rather than its exposure to the world at large. Increasingly, the Facebook-related dramas recounted by participants and/or their children are an extension of broader personal and/or social issues (e.g. relationship problems, bullying), rather than technology or platform-specific concerns such as internet privacy or viewing of unsuitable content."

Further noticeable are the explosion of downloadable apps and changes in linear TV viewing and radio listening.

I wonder if the idea of the Saturday night family TV show will die...

Read the report here

Paper: Mobile Remote Presence Systems for Older Adults: Acceptance, Benefits, and Concerns

I read this interesting paper by Jenay M. Beer about older adults using a remote robot to allow them to 'tele-communicate' with others in different locations (published in the Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '11) The robot (with screen) was developed by Willow Garage's.
For me the main findings was the question about 'etiquette' on using the remote presence. Do we have an etiquette for using Skype?
Also, this concern must affect groups of all ages not just the older adults, or?

Journal article: Everyday use of computer-mediated communication tools and its evolution over time: An ethnographical study with older people

Just came across this paper in "Interacting with Computers" which I find very interesting since it includes a longitudinal aspect. The paper, based on a ethnographic study with 400 older people in Barcelona, shows that older people are happy to include a range of ICT tools to communicate with their family / friends. The authors describe how the cognitive level will be the greatest challenge for using ICT when older. They also point out the importance of taking notes while learning - this is something that I have come across in my research too.
I also agree with their view that designing tools only for older people is not necessarily effective.
look for article

"You don't need to know it, you just need to know where to find the answers"

A lawyer friend of mine used to say this 20 years ago. He wouldn't remember the law word for word, but had to know in which book, court case or where else he would find references. The BBC reports about memory research and how computers affect the way we store memory. Read the article here
I think my friend's statement is supported with this study. For him the transactive memory were books at the time. So somehow results of the experiments are not surprising news !

HCI and (or versus?) Design

I came across a chapter about the uncomfortable relation between the traditions of HCI and Design. I have not checked if it is actually useful, but it should be worth reading anyway as part of the background to our thinking about function, likeability etc.

K. Kuutti. 2009. HCI and design: uncomfortable  bedfellows? In: Binder, Löwgren & Malmborg (eds.) (Re)searching the Digital Bauhaus. Springer, London, pp. 43-59

Available from http://cc.oulu.fi/~kuutti/Julkaisukansio/Ehn_60_Kuutti.pdf

Kari Kuutti is Professor, University of Oulu, Department of Information Processing Sciences
Linnanmaa,  Finland

BBC4 Radio 4 book of the week

This morning I happen to listen to the last part of the book "The warmth of the heart prevents the body from rusting". It made me looking forward to 'growing old' - a time where expectations are less and you take the world in as it is.

About the author and book:
French psychologist Marie de Hennezel examines western attitudes to ageing and asks if we can transform the way we feel about growing old, making this most feared period one of the best times of our lives.

De Hennezel draws on her experience of working with the dying to argue that one's proximity to death is not to be feared.

Read by Alexandra Mathie.
Abridged by Alison Joseph.

Marie de Hennezel is a respected psychologist and psychotherapist who works with the French government to raise awareness of palliative care. She has written nine books about the end of life, including 'Intimate Death', and is the author of two ministerial reports on caring for those with terminal illnesses.

listen for the next 7 days

"There are no older people, just older bodies"

In the first BRAID workshop (Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT development) was a lively discussion around when one feels 'old'...
Extract:
"Significantly, when asked if he considered himself to be an older person Miguel responded that he did not, prompting Emilio Mordini (CSSC) to close the workshop with a comment which must remain at the forefront of our work: that in reality there are ‘no older people, just older bodies’. "
read workshop summary here

I think this is very interesting because I think there is a point when an older person will say about themselves that they are old. I think it's the mindset of a person.

Useful population statistics in observer article

Look at the Observer article here. (The readers' comments are also interesting).
Click on the vital statistics link on the right hand side to see a European comparison and other facts. For me it was most interesting to see the various retirement incomes in the different European countries and how the number of working people per retired persons shrinks from 22 in the nineties to about 3 in 2024.

'Upgrade me' on BBC4

Who else watched 'Upgrade me' last Thursday on BBC4?
I thought it was very good in pointing out how quickly we managed to collect a drawer full of obsolete technology just in the last quarter of the century. From walkman, VHS, palm pilot, old models of mobile phones...
Most impressive for me was how many school children (11-14 years) Simon Armitage spoke to owned a mobile phone. 49 out of 50. All of them had a digital camera. Owning a gadget was part of their identity. Comparing mobiles phones and its functions was part of their 'social dance'.
I wonder what type of technology was central in the life of older people to form their identity? Was it radio, moving images, records, household appliances? Probably all of those.
Was the notion of 'upgrading' also as strong as it is now? Most likely not, since technology usually was built to last rather than to be replaced.

In case you still want to catch it - view it on Iplayer
BBC summary
Poet and gadget lover Simon Armitage explores people's obsession with upgrading to the latest technological gadgetry.

Upgrade culture drives millions to purchase the latest phones, flatscreen TVs, laptops and MP3 players. But is it design, functionality, fashion or friends that makes people covet the upgrade, and how far does the choice of gadgets define identity? Simon journeys across Britain and to South Korea in search of answers. (R)

"Loneliness is 'hidden killer' of elderly"

Story from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324231

Comment by Stephen: Note that no evidence is advanced for this claim. There is one reference to the literature in a PDF on the organisation's site at http://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk/ 

Loneliness is the "hidden killer" of elderly people, says a campaign group, which is calling for greater recognition of the link between isolation and ill-health.

A group of charities is launching the Campaign to End Loneliness.

It warns that lonely older people are at increased risk of depression, lack of exercise and bad diet.

The campaign says that almost one in 10 elderly people suffers from "intense" loneliness.

The campaign group wants loneliness to be recognised as a public health issue - and has published a survey claiming that fewer than one in five people is aware of the link between poor health and loneliness.

The campaign has been set up by Independent Age, Age UK Oxfordshire, Counsel and Care and WRVS and funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Trapped
While people are aware of the emotional problems of loneliness, the campaign says few recognise the physical damage.
It warns of elderly people trapped in their own homes by a lack of mobility and the loss of family and friends.

A tenth of elderly people see their friends or families less than once a month, says the charity

A lack of social interaction can make old people more vulnerable to depression and to problems such as excessive drinking, poor diet and a reduction in exercise.

The campaigners say that "loneliness adversely affects the immune and cardio-vascular systems" and a lack of social interaction is linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

"The problems of loneliness and isolation need to be put on an equal footing with any other condition associated with ageing. Ending loneliness should be part of the solution to the challenge of reforming care and support," said campaign director Laura Ferguson.

The campaign wants to highlight the importance of loneliness in the lives of the elderly.

More than half of people over the age of 75 are living alone - and about one in 10 says he or she suffers from "intense" loneliness.

According to the campaign, almost one in five old people sees family, friends or neighbours less than once a week - and about one in 10 of them experiences such social interaction less than once a month.

A spokeswoman for the campaign says that there is a need for informal and formal attempts to tackle such loneliness, either through organised befriending schemes or through neighbours helping one another.

She said that it was a problem that was often overlooked and which could manifest itself in other ways, such as health problems.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12324231

BSI publishes BS 8878:2010 Web accessibility - Code of practice

On 7th Dec 2010 the British Standards Institution launched the web accessibility standard BS 8878.

The RNIB writes:
"BS 8878 aims to fill the current gap between site owners and developers by providing a wider scope of information and recommendations, which can be applied before, during, and after the development phase. These include:

* Information on how disabled people use assistive technologies to interact with websites and web products, complete with example personas.
* Recommendations of how to incorporate accessibility considerations into projects from the ground up.
* Guidance on how to compose and maintain a clear, jargon-free accessibility policy.
* References to other guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 where appropriate to close the gaps between site owners, marketing staff and web developers."
read more

A link to BBC's article here