NESTA's Age Unlimited programme "is the first strand of work to emerge from NESTA's Public Service Innovation Lab. It targets people in their fifties to find ways to extend employment opportunities and to facilitate transition to other roles and interests. All of these serve as preconditions to staying physically fit, emotionally well, financially secure, loved and cared for."
http://www.nesta.org.uk/age-unlimited-launch/
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
UX magazine
I finally got hold of the UX user experience magazine dedicated to the topic 'How old are older users?'...
Really interesting articles - quite a bit we know already i.e. the aging process, design guidelines
The article 'Web 2.0 for an older population' looks at social networking sites and here I found for the first time a 2008 statistic on how many Facebook users over 65years old there are...
UK has the highest penetration (in percentage) with 83,060 users which makes 0.85% of the UK population. Compared with the USA 221,000 users (0.57%) and Germany 4700 users (0.02%) - which has the lowest penetration.
The article also points out how older users relate better to the word 'community' rather than social 'networking'...
I will also check out the social networking sites aimed at older people they've listed: Eons, Boomertown, Multiply and Boomj
Really interesting articles - quite a bit we know already i.e. the aging process, design guidelines
The article 'Web 2.0 for an older population' looks at social networking sites and here I found for the first time a 2008 statistic on how many Facebook users over 65years old there are...
UK has the highest penetration (in percentage) with 83,060 users which makes 0.85% of the UK population. Compared with the USA 221,000 users (0.57%) and Germany 4700 users (0.02%) - which has the lowest penetration.
The article also points out how older users relate better to the word 'community' rather than social 'networking'...
I will also check out the social networking sites aimed at older people they've listed: Eons, Boomertown, Multiply and Boomj
Friday, April 17, 2009
Government report (context)
This govt report has a section on digital inclusion that might be useful for scene-setting:
Digital Britain: The Interim Report
p60 has a page about government attitude to the issue.
Digital Britain: The Interim Report
p60 has a page about government attitude to the issue.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Short paper from 2004
Not sure if you have this one already, but it is a short paper about social interaction for elders. Wrong emphasis for you because it is about cognitive decline, but may have a couple of useful things anyway: Catalyzing social interaction with ubiquitous computing: a needs assessment of elders coping with cognitive decline http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/985921.986011
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
BBC article on online video
One point of the article that caught my attention:
"Towards the end of last year, social networking sites - such as Facebook and My Space - overtook adult sites in terms of popularity.
"Adult content makes up around 10%, whereas social networking sites are in excess of that. "
Read article
"Towards the end of last year, social networking sites - such as Facebook and My Space - overtook adult sites in terms of popularity.
"Adult content makes up around 10%, whereas social networking sites are in excess of that. "
Read article
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Negative opinions about old people may affect health
Younger adults who think of old people as helpless, feeble or forgetful are more likely to experience strokes, heart attacks and other health problems when they grow old themselves, researchers at Yale University report.
Baltimore longitudinal study on aging
Read article
Some of comments beneath the article are also interesting
Baltimore longitudinal study on aging
Read article
Some of comments beneath the article are also interesting
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Chat with Sarah Reed
Sarah Reed will be turning 60 years this year. She was previously a brand manager for design strategies and now she’s running her own company "Many happy returns". She’s a volunteer for CtE (Contact the Elderly) and drives her 3 older ladies to the monthly tea parties. She also writes her own blog on older people and their place in British society. http://theagepage.typepad.com/the_age_page/age_rage/
In my telephone interview with her, she described how she has 3 elderly women she looks after through CtE. One is 99 years, the other 96 and the third lady is in her Mid-80s.
Sarah thinks it’s very challenging to design something for them based on a computer. She confirmed the notion of ‘social pruning’ for the 3 women. They still live independently but friends have moved away, no or only few relatives that live far away, so people locally are important. They take part in CtE to have contact with other people. She explained that the elderly women never call her. She always has to call them. She said their reasons are that the women think that they interrupt Sarah and it would be too expensive to speak.
Sarah explained that she runs workshops with children in the kindergarten and where she tells them to imagine how it was when people were born in the period from 1910- 1920 – no electricity, no running water, shower, bath etc
Sarah described the elderly women's generation: Respect for the authority, very private, doing their duty, don’t want to be a burden, hard grafters, women wouldn't go into a ‘public house’. They are used to face-to-face meetings. She explained how a vast majority of seniors from this generation don’t claim benefits (for which they’d need to fill in the form).
Items that make life easier were introduced throughout the 1960s, so this generation was already 50 years old. Computers are commercially easily only available for the last 12 years, so it’s understandable that the update it very low.
Sarah has a 92 years old auntie who uses a laptop. Sarah explained how money is very important. Some of the women from CtE only live on about £90 a week. It would be difficult to afford a computer, broadband and accessories.
Sarah also mentioned the example of an older and well-educated man (GP). She was in frequent contact with him and he saw her using her laptop. At the beginning he seemed to have been terrified of her laptop, but became eventually interested in trying out the laptop. However, just typing took him such a long while that he became frustrated and stopped being interested. Sarah also mentioned how eyesight is an important factor for computer use.
I'd like to thank Sarah for sharing her insights and information with me.
In my telephone interview with her, she described how she has 3 elderly women she looks after through CtE. One is 99 years, the other 96 and the third lady is in her Mid-80s.
Sarah thinks it’s very challenging to design something for them based on a computer. She confirmed the notion of ‘social pruning’ for the 3 women. They still live independently but friends have moved away, no or only few relatives that live far away, so people locally are important. They take part in CtE to have contact with other people. She explained that the elderly women never call her. She always has to call them. She said their reasons are that the women think that they interrupt Sarah and it would be too expensive to speak.
Sarah explained that she runs workshops with children in the kindergarten and where she tells them to imagine how it was when people were born in the period from 1910- 1920 – no electricity, no running water, shower, bath etc
Sarah described the elderly women's generation: Respect for the authority, very private, doing their duty, don’t want to be a burden, hard grafters, women wouldn't go into a ‘public house’. They are used to face-to-face meetings. She explained how a vast majority of seniors from this generation don’t claim benefits (for which they’d need to fill in the form).
Items that make life easier were introduced throughout the 1960s, so this generation was already 50 years old. Computers are commercially easily only available for the last 12 years, so it’s understandable that the update it very low.
Sarah has a 92 years old auntie who uses a laptop. Sarah explained how money is very important. Some of the women from CtE only live on about £90 a week. It would be difficult to afford a computer, broadband and accessories.
Sarah also mentioned the example of an older and well-educated man (GP). She was in frequent contact with him and he saw her using her laptop. At the beginning he seemed to have been terrified of her laptop, but became eventually interested in trying out the laptop. However, just typing took him such a long while that he became frustrated and stopped being interested. Sarah also mentioned how eyesight is an important factor for computer use.
I'd like to thank Sarah for sharing her insights and information with me.
Generation game
Have you heard of 'many happy returns' before?
It's a card game that is supposed to connect the generations. The cards show visuals / icons from the 1940. It could be interesting to look at these card to get a feeling for the design and the look and feel.
http://www.manyhappyreturns.org/howworks.do/howworks
P.s. It reminds me a little bit of Monty Python's Meaning of life - the discussion cards for the couple
It's a card game that is supposed to connect the generations. The cards show visuals / icons from the 1940. It could be interesting to look at these card to get a feeling for the design and the look and feel.
http://www.manyhappyreturns.org/howworks.do/howworks
P.s. It reminds me a little bit of Monty Python's Meaning of life - the discussion cards for the couple
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