Design and evaluation of a mobile smart home interactive system with elderly users in Brazil

Abstract

This article presents a study concerning the evaluation of a smart home control system for elderly people with a sample of 10 users in a city in the interior of Brazil. The control system consisted of a prototype using a Web-based mobile application, developed considering requirements obtained from a previous study and recommendations from the literature. The test participants were over 60 years old and had basic experience in the use of smartphones and computers. Success rates in the execution of activities, difficulty levels in carrying out activities, satisfaction, motivation, and control feelings were analyzed. We noted that the application had a satisfactory acceptance level by the participants, showing good results with the tests applied. As main implications for the design, the study showed the importance of clearly identifying the users’ whereabouts in the house in the application, not hiding information under scrolling, using images and videos appropriately in help systems to avoid confusion, limiting the number of windows open to keep context, avoiding unclear interactive elements to favor direct affordances, and proximity on the screen to group rooms and appliances visually. The results from the study can contribute to improving interaction with smart home systems for elderly people, especially in countryside parts of developing countries.