Designing for way-finding as practices – A study of elderly people's mobility. Issue 115 (July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meurer, Johanna; Stein, Martin; Randall, David; Wulf, Volker
• Is Part Of: International journal of human-computer studies. Issue 115(2018)
• Page Start: 40
• Page End: 51
• Publication Date: 2018-07
• Subjects: Mobility -- Mobility assistance ICT -- Elderly people -- Young elderly people -- Way-finding practices -- Senses of place -- Mobile sensing -- Mobility probes; Human-machine systems -- Periodicals; Systems engineering -- Periodicals; Human engineering -- Periodicals; Human engineering; Human-machine systems; Systems engineering; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 004.019
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.01.008
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1071-5819

Abstract

Abstract: Mobility assistance ICTs have become important companions in daily life as digital affordances have become sophisticated. However, understanding and researching everyday way-finding is still challenging, mainly because of the sheer difficulty of collecting empirical data about concrete occasions of use. Hence, we argue that those methodological challenges make it harder to understand the mobility needs of certain user groups. We aim to address this gap while focusing on elderly people, a user group that has increasingly become a focus of HCI studies, and ask the following questions: (1) What are the everyday way-finding practices of that user group? And (2) how can these be supported by mobility assistance ICTs? For answering them, we developed a methodological framework to study daily mobility as way-finding practices and conducted an interview study with 15 'young elderly' people supplemented with a probing technique. The paper concludes with reflections on the potential for and limits to, the study of, and designing for, way-finding as practices.