Towards Participatory Prototyping with Older Adults with and Without Cognitive Impairment: Challenges and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Technology is often not accessible to older adults, especially to those with low digital literacy or cognitive impairment. One premise of participatory design is that involving stakeholders including potential users during the whole process of design and development can result in solutions that are more accessible and make more sense to a target population. However, involving older adults in the design process is not straightforward, especially when they have little or no experience with information technology or some form of cognitive impairment, such as early stages of dementia. We investigate how to facilitate the participation of older adults with and without cognitive impairments in the phase of low-fidelity prototyping. We report on participatory design activities conducted in a non-governmental home for older adults with low socioeconomic status and present lessons learned and challenges for planning and conducting participatory design that complement the literature in this subject area. For example, participants showed they are capable of some level of abstraction, although literature indicates that older adults with cognitive impairments have difficulties in abstract thinking.

EquiP: A Method to Co-Design for Cooperation

“…When they are involved together, healthcare professionals, or the network of people supporting the person, have mostly taken on the role of consultant or supporter of the patient during the PD sessions. This is particularly common for people with cognitive impairments or differences in cognitive abilities (O'Connor et al, 2006;Plaisant et al, 2006;Dawe, 2007;Wu et al, 2010;Balaam et al, 2011;Lindsay et al, 2012a;Muriana and Hornung, 2017). In other cases, healthcare professionals have taken on the role of patients' proxies in PD (Colonius et al, 2010;Galliers et al, 2012;Borges et al, 2013).…”

“…Due to similarities in symptoms, involving MACI patients in PD presents similar challenges to older adults or people with dementia, amnesia or aphasia. These user groups struggle with abstract thinking (Galliers et al, 2012;Kane et al, 2012;Muriana and Hornung, 2017;Daehlen and Joshi, 2019) and the ability to envision future solutions (Massimi et al, 2007;Lindsay et al, 2012a, b;Mayer and Zach, 2013;Branco et al, 2016;Maartmann-Moe, 2019). Including structure and review in PD sessions is considered useful for these user groups (Wu et al, 2004;Massimi et al, 2007;Frennert et al, 2012;Lindsay et al, 2012a;Muriana and Hornung, 2017).…”

“…These user groups struggle with abstract thinking (Galliers et al, 2012;Kane et al, 2012;Muriana and Hornung, 2017;Daehlen and Joshi, 2019) and the ability to envision future solutions (Massimi et al, 2007;Lindsay et al, 2012a, b;Mayer and Zach, 2013;Branco et al, 2016;Maartmann-Moe, 2019). Including structure and review in PD sessions is considered useful for these user groups (Wu et al, 2004;Massimi et al, 2007;Frennert et al, 2012;Lindsay et al, 2012a;Muriana and Hornung, 2017). Support through prompts or visual cues has also been described as enhancing active participation and facilitating the envisioning of future solutions (Galliers et al, 2012;Hendriks et al, 2013;Mayer and Zach, 2013;Orso et al, 2015;Muriana and Hornung, 2017).…”

“…Including structure and review in PD sessions is considered useful for these user groups (Wu et al, 2004;Massimi et al, 2007;Frennert et al, 2012;Lindsay et al, 2012a;Muriana and Hornung, 2017). Support through prompts or visual cues has also been described as enhancing active participation and facilitating the envisioning of future solutions (Galliers et al, 2012;Hendriks et al, 2013;Mayer and Zach, 2013;Orso et al, 2015;Muriana and Hornung, 2017). Other researchers have emphasised the relevance of building on personal experience (Frennert et al, 2012;Galliers et al, 2012;Lindsay et al, 2012b;Hendriks et al, 2013;Orso et al, 2015;Talamo et al, 2017).…”