Interactions - May/June 2012

dangerous conditions. Assistive or prosthetic technologies substitute for some capability that is impaired, much as a crutch may be used after one breaks a leg. Rehabilitative systems are used to strengthen or revitalize an impaired capability. An example is working with a physiotherapist after one breaks a leg to enable walking without the crutch. The most ambitious goal for technology is to preserve health. An example is the vigorous commercial activity in the realm of brain-fitness exercise and game vendors, who claim that regular use of their software can slow mental aging, just as regular exercise delays physical decline.

These distinctions enable us to describe research in terms of a taxonomy, illustrated in Table 1.

seniors to remain active members of their family and community while pursuing their interests is just as important as improving interface-level mechanics.

Doing this successfully requires interaction professionals to work intensively with professionals in gerontology, neuropsychology, social work, speech/language pathology, nursing, and other disciplines; community groups; and, most important, older adults themselves. For, as we know, studying systems in use by real users doing real tasks in real environments is the key to inspired design.

7. Benjamin, A., Birnholtz, J., Baecker, R. M., and Gromala, D. Impression management work: How seniors with chronic pain address disruptions in their interactions. Proc. ACM CSCW 2012, 799-808. 8. David, J., Benjamin, A., Baecker, R.M., Gromala, D., and Birnholtz, J. Living with pain, staying in touch: Exploring the communication needs of older adults with chronic pain. Ext. Abs. ACM SIGCHI 2011, 1219-1224. 9. Massimi, M. and Baecker, R. M. Dealing with death in design: Developing systems for the bereaved. Proc. ACM SIGCHI 2011, 1001-1010. 10. Moffatt, K., David, J., and Baecker, R.M. Connecting grandparents and grandchildren. To appear in Connecting Families: The Impact of New Communication Technologies on Domestic Life. C. Neustaedter, S. Harrison, and A. Sellen, eds. Springer, 2012, in press. 11. Fenwick, K., Massimi, M., Baecker, R.M., Black, S., Tonon, K., Munteanu, C., Rochon, E., and Ryan, D. Cell phone software aiding name recall. Proc. ACM SIGCHI 2009, 4279-4284. 12. Snelgrove, W.X. and Baecker, R.M. A system for the collaborative reading of digital books with the partially sighted. Proc. BooksOnline’ 10. 13.Pandeliev, V. and Baecker, R.M. A Framework for the evaluation of mental fitness games. Proc. 6th Annual Games for Health Conference. 2010. 14. Damianakis, T., Crete-Nishihata, M., Smith, K.L., Baecker, R.M, and Marziali, E. The psychosocial impacts of multimedia biographies on persons with cognitive impairments. The Gerontologist 50, (2009), 23-50. 15. Crete-Nishihata, M., Baecker, R.M., Massimi, M., Ptak, D., Campigotto, R., Kaufman, L.D., Brickman, A.M., Turner, G.R., Steinerman, J.R., and Black, S.E. Reconstructing the past: Personal memory technologies are not just personal and not just for memory. Special issue of Human-Computer Interaction on Designing for Personal Memories. 2012, to appear. 16. Wu, M., Birnholtz, J., Baecker, R.M., Richards, B., and Massimi, M. Collaborating to remember: A distributed cognition account of families coping with memory impairments. Proc. ACM SIGCHI 2008, 825-834.

May + June 2012

Acknowledgements

We are thankful for financial support from NSERC, the GRAND Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada, Microsoft Research, Google Research, the Alzheimer’s Association, the University of Toronto Connaught Fund, and MyVoice Inc.; and for the excellent work of the many grad and undergrad students, research associates, and academic and clinical collaborators who have contributed to the research. We are especially grateful to the older adults who have graciously donated their time and energy to participate in our studies.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ronald M. Baecker is a professor
of computer science, Bell Chair of
Human-Computer Interaction, and
also founder and director of
TAGlab, at the University of
Toronto.
Karyn Moffatt, recently associate
director of TAGlab, is now assis-
tant professor in the School of
Information Studies at McGill
University.

Michael Massimi, associate director of TAGlab, just completed his Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Toronto.

interactions

Conclusion

We have learned much from our work to date. The challenges and opportunities for technology are about not just memory, cognition, and communication, but also identity, self-reliance, and self-worth. Beyond aiding individuals, the task is to support a system that includes people who have challenges along with their family members, caregivers, and clinicians (see [ 16]).

Although the research projects we have described assist users primarily in single tasks (such as reading or speaking), they can be situated more holistically. As the world’s population continues to age, technology designers will benefit from viewing seniors not simply as users with singular impairments to human-computer interaction, but rather as human beings with rich and diverse sources of motivation, pride, and fulfillment. Creating technologies that allow

ENDNOTES:

1. United Nations Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs. World Population to 2300, Table 15. (2004). 2. Maslow, A.H. A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review 50, (1943), 370-396. 3. Fox, S. and Jones, S. The social life of health information. Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2009. 4. Belshaw, M., Taati, B., Snoek, J., and Mihailidis, A. Towards a single sensor passive solution for automated fall detection. International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (Boston, MA). Aug.-Sep. 2011. 5. Ivorra, A., Daniels, C., and Rubinsky, B. Minimally obtrusive wearable device for continuous interactive cognitive and neuro-logical assessment. Physiological Measurement 29, 5 (2008), 543–554. 6. Shim, N., Baecker, R.M., Birnholtz, J., and Moffatt, K. Table Talk Poker: An online social gaming environment for seniors. Proc. Future Play. 2010, 98-104.