Designing Digital Technologies for Older Adults’ Engagement in Personally Meaningful Activities
Project overview
Engaging in personally meaningful activities is associated with greater wellbeing for people in later life. Digital technologies have created great opportunities for people in their later lives to participate in meaningful social activities through different online platforms. However, there are myriad unanswered questions about the design of online platforms for older adults' social engagement.
The aim of this research is to understand how digital technologies should be designed to support older adults' online social engagement in personally meaningful activities. We will use a participatory design approach to explore the research questions and ensure older adults’ voices are heard in the design process. The results of the research will include the design and evaluation of a prototype of a system for older adults’ online social engagement in personally meaningful activities. It will also reveal design opportunities and considerations for older adults’ future online engagement in social activities.
Key Questions:
• How do older adults define ‘meaningful activity’ in their online
social engagement process?
• What are the challenges of using technologies to support older
adults’ social
engagement in personally meaningful activities?
• What design implications should be
considered for the future design of online social engagement for older adults?
• How effective is participatory design approach for the design of social technologies for
older adults?
Project information
| Funding source | Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship & ARC Grant FT170100420 |
|---|---|
| Project time frame | February-August 2023 | Ethics Approval Number | 24417 |
| Files | plain language statement |
