A study on the needs of older adults for interactive smart home environments in Brazil

Abstract

The global trend towards population ageing has been observed and the concept of Ageing-in-Place has increasingly targeted the improvement of quality of life and well-being to elderly people in their own residence. Solutions known as smart home aim to enable that these improvements to the quality of life of older people can actually be achieved, as well as provide greater independence and autonomy. However, few existing applications can meet the needs of this public due to specific characteristics of ageing. The subject is much more precarious to elderly Brazilians who live in country towns, as most of these applications are not available in Portuguese, their native language. This paper presents the results of a focus group carried out with people aged over 60 years and who have some previous experience using computers and smartphones. The goal of this study was to better understand the difficulties and perceptions in relation to the use of technologies that they are already familiar with and trust, in order to highlight implications for the design of interactive home technologies for this public. The data collection made it possible to acquire a better understanding of the reality of elderly people and also to identify their great interest in improving knowledge to enable a more frequent use of technology. We observed that older people are increasingly becoming more acquainted with technologies and interested in using them inside their homes. Nonetheless, there are some concerns about the reliability, dependence and costs of such applications.