Understanding Older Adult Use of Data Visualizations as a Resource for Maintaining Health and Wellness

Abstract

To better understand how older adults use health visualizations and the potential barriers that impact utility, we conducted semistructured interviews with 21 older adults. Within these sessions, we presented participants with two interactive visualizations for exploration. Through an affinity mapping exercise, we extracted five key themes associated with how older adults utilize health visualizations and provide corresponding recommendations as points of consideration for designers developing older adult focused health visualizations. By examining how older adults perceive the utility of health visualizations, we lay the groundwork for design choices that impact eventual use and adoption of systems that generate data for such visualizations.

Understanding How Older Adults Comprehend COVID-19 Interactive Visualizations via Think-Aloud Protocol

“…For example, Ahmed et al conducted a participatory design with older patients to design visualizations for data generated from cardiac re-synchronization therapy devices to increase their engagement in care for a patient-facing dashboard (Ahmed et al, 2019). Similarly, Le et al conducted a participatory design with older adults to design health visualizations and later interviewed older adults to understand how they used health visualizations and potential barriers (Le, Chi, Chaudhuri, Thompson, & Demiris, 2018). They found that older adults felt that contextual information about visualizations was helpful and that their computer literacy might have affected their understanding.…”

Defining Wellness in Older Adulthood: Toward a Comprehensive Framework

“…Similarly, there were five articles using H. L. Dunn’s (1959) high‐level wellness framework, all of which focused on the use of wellness‐based technology. H. L. Dunn is considered one of the founders of the modern wellness movement, and his model, which focuses on cognitive, physiological, social, and spiritual well‐being, is used as a theoretical framework for assessing holistic wellness through e‐health technology (Thompson et al, 2011) such as integrated data visualization (e.g., Le, Chi, Chaudhuri, Thompson, & Demiris, 2018) and informatics (Demiris, Thompson, Reeder, Wilamowska, & Zaslavsky, 2013). Although Demiris et al (2013) commented on the specific ways that H. L. Dunn’s domains would apply to older adults, there is only a brief allusion to the framework’s historical development and empirical validation.…”

Monitoring Older Adults’ Health Information Using Mobile Technology: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Visualization of data connects monitoring technology with the real world, representing data in a simple way, promoting knowledge and discovery, as well as improving user experience and interactions [28]. Several health data visualization systems based on the needs of older adults have been designed-e.g., focused on sleep quality, diet, physical activity, mental health, medication adherence, as well as for the management of major conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes [29][30][31][32][33][34]. Designing appropriate visualizations has proven to be a challenge, especially if different stakeholders have different information needs.…”

“…For example, older adults have different information needs regarding health care providers [35]. Older adults prefer to visualize data over a monthly or annual time period to detect patterns with greater clarity [29] while health care providers indicate the need to have broad-level information views and at the same time allow visualization of detailed information [35]. The development of health monitoring tools must recognize these differences in order to reconcile the needs of the users with those of the health care providers.…”