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Concept Proposal

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uekiai edited this page Oct 27, 2018 · 1 revision

Using design approaches to alleviate the risks of social inclusion within the specific communities in Australia

Introduction

The domain/problems space is social isolation and the causes that ultimately lead to this state. There are many reasons behind why social isolation occurs and there are many negative consequences to it. Specifically, our team aims to focus on people that are over 45 years old as the primary stakeholders (target audience), the risks that lead to isolation, the effects of social isolation, and existing solutions alleviate social isolation risks. This will be achieved through different approaches and methods, such as interviews or questionnaires for initial design and TAM and heuristic evaluation for iterated designs. Through initial domain/problem space research, the focal point of this project will be targeted towards alleviating socio-demographic risks (not being married, not having children etc). This was found to be a major factor that lead social isolation within the target audience Furthermore, the team will also look into technology acceptance ratios for different technologies for the targeted audience.

The project our team wants to produce is to create an immersive experience for our target audience in order to alleviate the risks of social isolation, namely socio-demographic risks.

Domain/Problem Space:

Social isolation is a state of complete or near-complete lack of contact between an individual and society. It differs from loneliness, which reflects a temporary lack of contact with other humans (Hanratty, 2012). Whilst this state exists in many communities, studies show that it increasing in prevalence within the elderly community. Specifically, community studies conducted in the UK reported rates of severe loneliness among adults aged over 65 are over 15%, while at any one given time up to 32% of individuals aged over 55 feel lonely and socially isolated (Valtorta, 2012).

Factors that are found to lead to social isolation within the elderly community are :

  • Socio-demographic risks (not being married, not having children etc.) (Gierveld, J. D., 2006)
  • Younger genaraion dont like interaction with elderly (Gierveld, J. D., 2006)
  • Health status risks (Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, obesity, increased vascular resistance etc.) (Gierveld, J. D., 2016)
  • Life event risks (Experience of loss of a loved one) (Gierveld, J. D., 2016)

These factors can be separated into two distinct categories: Subjective isolation factors (low self esteem) and Objective isolation factors (distant from loved ones/loss of loved one).

Research suggests that the state of social exclusion has several negative impacts. This includes cognitive impairments and bodily function decline (S. Shapiro, 2018). Furthermore, intuitively, research also shows that negative effects on health status, health-related quality of life (HRQL) is correlated to social isolation in elderly (A. Hawton, 2018). This ultimately leads to further tendency to socially isolate oneself, a vicious cycle of sorts. According to a SENIOR LIVING Blog by Jeff Anderson (J. Anderson, 2108), existing approaches that combats social isolation include:

  • Promoting sense of purpose (encouraging elderly to remain active in their hobbies and interests).
  • Encourage religious seniors to maintain attendance at their places of worship (assuming that they have one).
  • Give a senior something to take care of.
  • Make adaptive technologies available (this includes the newest technology trends).

Our team aims to focus on the sociological risks which leads to isolation as a ramification. Furthermore, how certain interventions may alleviate the prevalence of this state within the elderly community. Specifically interventions that use new technology as research showed elderly are willing to adapt and use updated technology within their everyday lives (Klímová, 2017). Research shows use of new technology can benefit the quality of life of the target audience (elderly people) through methods such as promoting autonomy of older people by facilitating the execution of many routine activities such as shopping or communication (Šimonová, 2017).

Design Opportunity / Concept:

As previously research had explained technology it is possible to assist elderly people with technology indirectly to their social integration(Šimonová, 2017). Furthermore, other alternatives for solving social inclusion had been made such as applying social networking systems which provides virtualization of worlds, enabling a social network environment Martines (2015). Selective methods had been proven to alleviate isolation on elderly, for instance Second Life a multiplayer simulator that in 2015 registered 1/3 of the database being constituted by elderly people (Campos, 2016). This serves to prove the common misconception that elderly are exposed to technology in fact, Wagner (2010) states that Seniors and Elderly now use technology in their daily lives.

In contrast, while technologies exist to aid people at risk of social isolation, these are at scarce as stated by Khosravi (2016), therefore opening the opportunity to the team to aid the community focusing on reducing soci-demographic risks. The rationale for focusing on one sole risk of the 3 previously mentioned by Gierveld (2016) (Socio-demographic, health, life events) is that this will allow the proper emphasis on the design phase and could mark a distinction among existing solutions. As Poscia (2017) explains that the results between improvements of social isolation had shown mixed results on its effectiveness, with technology approaches that had consistently tackled isolation. One possibility of this factor is that there exists insufficient understanding of older people mental model, but this factor be attributed to the focus on various causes of social isolation.

However, despite studies showing the technology acceptance is relatively high on seniors and elderly this presents challenge as Chen & Chan (2014) explain that elderly tend to prefer “old fashioned designs” or systems that had been existing relevantly during their early life time. This means that the system to be developed will aim to stimulate the individuals emotionally, therefore, would induce reactions of analysis to the individuals about their current situation, assist them with their expectations and provide intellectual stimulus in order to match with a capable emotional system on a visceral, behavioral and reflective level respectively.

The Target audience had been selected based on the conjunctive description of the sources mentioned and is presented as follows:

  • Primary : People with Socio-demographic risk | People above 45 years old
  • Secondary: Human Companion | Adults | Family Members
  • Tertiary: Health professionals | Psychologists | Retirement Homes | Businesses

Plan of Work:

Phase: Initial Requirement - 27/Aug-9/Sep Brief Description: In this period the team is going to do research on the topic and decide what shall be done. Our team will also work on the requirement of the product.

Phase: Initial Design - 10/Sep-16/Sep Brief Description: In this period our team will start designing the product.

Phase: Prototype & Evaluation - 17/Sep-31/Sep Brief Description: The build of our the first digital prototype and evaluation would be done, as well as the user testing with the assigned target users.

Phase: Iteration & Evaluation - 1/Oct-21/Oct Brief Description: During this time the iterate phase of the design will take place and changes may be made according to previous evaluation.

Final Prototype - 22/Oct-26/Oct Brief Description: The team will submit the final prototype and do the showcase in class

Team Members:

Name Degree Strengths Weaknesses
Jack CHEN Bachelor of IT Back end coding with Java and C#. Learning developer tools and game development. Through the project, I hope to improve in my coding skills and become more familiar with game development tools such as Unity. UX UI design, aesthetics. Through this project, I hope to gain appreciation for front end design and aesthetics. This includes various aspects of design (colour palettes etc.)
Long Hin Lai Bachelor of IT UX/UI design, Website coding. Front end design and coding. Advanced backend coding. Through this project I hope to improve my backend coding with working on the VR game.
Chung Ka Wang Kelvin Bachelor of IT UI/UX design, website coding, front end coding Backend coding and graphic design. Through this project I hope to improve my backend coding and the graphic design.
Hernan Isaac Ocana Flores Bachelor of IT Previous experience on Graphic Design, UX/UI, web development and mobile applications C#, SQL, Unity3D. Would be Utilizing these skills through the development of a user centered design form on VR tailoring the experience to the targeted audiences. Coding complexity and debugging, inf

SCORE analysis:

Strengths:

Team
  • Self Managing team.
  • Agile development experience.
  • Low conflict risk because familiar with each other on a personal level.
  • Access to distributable web platforms such as Wordpress Multisite.
  • Programming background (Object oriented languages). Front-end and Back-end.
  • User centred design experience.
  • Experience with version control systems.
  • Intercommunication skills
Project
  • Abundant to research papers.
  • Ease of interaction with target audience through Brisbane City Council libraries.

Challenges:

Team
  • Time management.
  • Personal and Professional commitments.
  • Physical/Mental health issues.
Project
  • Hardware restrictions.
  • Lack of proficiency with technology chosen.
  • Difficulty accessing users for research and testing.

Options:

Opportunities
  • Networking opportunities.
  • Learning opportunity.
  • Opportunity to increase coding/design skills.
  • Opportunity to increase interpersonal skills
Risks
  • Target audience do not cooperate with team.
  • Working with the elderly (e.g. handicapped etc.).
  • Time management problems.
  • Mental model does not match conceptual model.

Responses:

  • The team assumes the response will be positive towards the target audience (elderly) because of existing research showing high level of technology acceptance. Furthermore, since the project aims to benefit the elderly community, the team hopes to achieve the opportunity to be tested.

References

Gierveld, J. D., Tilburg T., Dvkstra A., 2016. "Loneliness and Social Isolation" The Oublisher, The Vol pp, Retrieved from:https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/2173239

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