Emotional Interaction as a Way of Communication

Helena Sustar1, Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris2

Centre for HCI Design City University, London EC1V 0HB, UK
1

[email protected],
2 Centre for HCI Design City University, London EC1V 0HB, UK [email protected]

Abstract. The article presents the design and evaluation phase an example of an emotional interaction for elderly users as a means for interpersonal communication, management with the residence (smart house) and communication with the external environment. The proposed solution suggests using non-verbal communication (care for a garden) with the assistance of sound, colours, materials and shapes for creating an intuitive, fluid and permanent communication. The paper also reports on the evaluation phase of this kind of interaction by investigating whether it is suitable for different age group users. The evaluation phase was focused more on the 60+ year old elderly users. We evaluated this way of interaction in different situations: in communicating with relatives, taking medicine, recording reminders, controlling their home and using different services. Evaluation results showed that our users felt that this interaction is too simple and that older people in their fourth life period (around the eighties) do not appreciate this way of thinking. Categories and Subject Descriptors A.0 [GENERAL]: Conference Proceedings H.5.2: User interfaces, User-centered design Author Keywords: elderly people, interaction design, interface

Introduction
The 21st century is the century of the elderly, because of longer life expectancy and demographic changes. By 2050 there will be more than 2 billion elderly people in the world, and this number will for the first time in history exceed the number of teenagers [9]. This is a large market group with various needs. The tendency of the active and independent elderly person is going in the direction of enabling and including them in society [13]. That is why in the future designers, developers and engineers will need to develop products for a dynamic, heterogeneous age group [11, 7] and this will in turn influence the development of new technological solutions. It is necessary to find technological solutions suitable for different age groups of people, by considering the interaction between the individuals abilities and activities that he/she can handle, and the environment that surrounds him/her [8].

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1 What will the Future Technology be like?

One of certain possible answers could be in Stefano Marzanos [10] words. Manager of the Philips corporative design, he sees an answer in IT, which has to be in harmony with the need of the constant development in the field of communication, health and entertainment with the use of highly effective materials. In his opinion, inexpensive technology is opening possibilities for miniaturization and modernization of programmed equipment. He sees the problem merely in the complexity of the environment, which is why it is necessary to think on a conceptual level in the reconstruction of services, collaboration, interaction, and multimedia, but all in the context of use. Philips sees the possible answer in ambient intelligence [1, 13]. Furthermore, the Spanish researcher Julio Abscal [1] expects the development into application technology of control, wireless technologies and reduction of controlling and communication functions. Better use of speech, support of the control and location, and automatic actions that are based on the analysis of human biological signals are needed. Intelligent systems can help in an intuitive and transparent way. Future technology will stimulate the user to better use of senses. It will activate mental processes: trigger reminiscences, feelings, smells, touch, and it will take us into the past, when our connections with nature were even more primary. The products are bound to be more adaptable, capable of answering our moods and wishes [16]. They will need to be highly personalized and will learn our preferences and follow our habits. They will become our pets [12]. In society a new trend is being established the possibility of elderly people living independently at home as long as possible with formal and informal support [7]. The technological progress has accelerated the research work that is connected with the independent residence of the elderly in areas such as smart home, interactive design, ambient intelligence[13], and assistive technology [5]. Sandra Howell [17] believes that the elderly have to live in a stimulating and heterogeneous extravert environment that will give them possibilities for physical activity and mental stimulation. It is necessary to develop a flexible, plural service system based on meeting the individuals needs that also takes into consideration his/her privacy, decision-making and independence. The elderly themselves have to choose the form of guardianship that suits them the most. Technological designs can react to problems, such as: satisfying the users need for comfort and pleasure in his or her residential environment, self-employment, caring for them and independently in a creative way. Considering all this, it is necessary that technology offers solutions that are simple on the outside and smart (complex) on the inside [18]. To study these issues we used a user-centred design methodology to design and evaluate a proposed low-fidelity prototype of an emotional system.

2 What Research Methods were used?

Three main research methods were used in the first part of the early development phase. Firstly, a collection of conversations with ten residents of a medium size home for the elderly in Domale (Slovenia) was recorded. The participants were mostly old ladies between 55 to 85 years old. From the perspective of education, occupation, family status, diseases, hobbies, living, difficulties, disability and connections with

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relatives, their backgrounds were very different. The main reasons why they moved from their home to the home for elderly people were various: illness, collapse, isolation and so on. At the beginning, the conversation was around differences between living at home and living in the home for the elderly people, and their acclimatization to the new home. Moreover, we had a discussion about their daily activities and social contact with their relatives and carers. Regarding the question of what things they miss the most, one of the participants mentioned that she really missed her garden. Building on the knowledge we acquired from the interviews we built a number of personas of different possible users [3]. We also wanted possible other users of our design to be from other age groups as well. Considering this, various user groups were chosen, not just elderly people. They were chosen based on criteria like: their natural environment, social network, and occupation background, what he/she was doing in their own extra time, where they were living and what kind of technology they were using. With these in mind, we built different user profiles (personas). For example a profile of an ex-extreme sportsman who became physically disabled after an accident and has become a gardener; a blind granddaughter who is living with her grandmother; a onetime politician who lives alone on a small farm; a young fashion designer who travels a lot and an 80 year old widow who lives alone. All of these personas were somehow connected with gardening, plants or soil. Thirdly, a brainstorming session was organized mostly from the reason that through the literature review it was difficult to find innovative design solutions that have an ageing focus. All 6 participants of the brainstorming were from different areas that were in some way connected with our research: architecture, journalism, design, engineering, economy and computer programming. There was also one 76year old woman as a representative of elderly users. First the discussion (about 20 minutes) focused on earlier prepared keywords: smart, simple, independence, mobility/activity, safety/residence and ageing, control and communication. It is interesting those keywords that we considered as the most important were the least valuable for participants: smart, simple, independence were highly important, mobility/activity, safety/residence were for them medium important and the least important were for them ageing, control and communication. These key words participants used through discussion at searching the characteristics that the new gadget needed to have. Through a 20-minute discussion with participants we established that the convenient gadgets for the elderly need to be: socially oriented; interaction between gadgets and elderly users needs to be active; the owner has to care for them, the device could remind the owner to take medicine and so on. In the second part of the brainstorming session the participants worked the last 20 minutes in pairs developing new ideas.

3 What was the Result in the Design Phase?

The new ideas from the brainstorming sessions were included in the process of developing the main idea in the design phase. The design result in these phases was a low-fidelity 3D model/prototype made from plain material such as: wood, foam, fibreglass and plastic that. We named it Virtual garden. The idea was designed as an interaction interface that tried to be simple and intuitive, with technology and

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wireless media, those functions on the organization of a normal garden. If we illustrate how garden interact: with combing with diagnostic tool (4) user (see Fig 1) test if all gadgets in the garden operate. With communication devices users can speak with their relatives or virtual gardeners 1 , with information recorders can records various information as well smell, sound and picture. The transformers of information detect moisture, light and temperature and show these to user with changing the colour, moving blades, opening (bio weather flower) or voice message. The main interactions happened between the user and Virtual garden with touching the plants gadgets, and changing their position in the garden. Some of the gadgets like the communication devices users wearing on the clothes like brooch.

Fig. 1 The Virtual garden includes four groups of tools with particular intention: communication between users (1), recording different senses information (2), communication with users residence (3) and diagnostic tool for verified of gadgets.

For a better illustration of what the Virtual garden is able to do we made a short video which shows how the Virtual garden can be used for communication between users, social contact and management matters with smart house.

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Fig. 2 The central computer in Virtual garden is connected with Internet and across that can get different information and interpret to user in simple and understandable way.

4 Is the Interaction with the Virtual Garden suitable for Users?

We decided that it was necessary after the design phase to accomplish the evaluation phase and investigate how potential users would accept the gadget. The main goals of the evaluation phase were summarized in four questions: What kind of lifestyle do elderly people have today? Are the forms, colours and shapes of the Virtual garden suitable and understandable enough? Is the interaction with the Virtual garden appropriate for users? How good is the Virtual garden in supporting users tasks and how easy is it for them to use and learn it? Besides that we want to improve the product: getting new ideas to humanize the interaction and discover new possibilities of using the garden. For the evaluation phase different age groups of users were chosen, however, we put extra focus on elderly people. With the assistance of standardized questionnaires we investigated issues like: personal characteristics,

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residence, health, the use of leisure time, the ways of communicating with relatives (face to face contacts, telephone conversations), and technologies that they already use and so on. We asked the participants if they had any experience of gardening and how important for them certain things are such as feeling at home, independence and simplicity. For the second part of the evaluation phase we conducted a series of interviews with users that were based around the evaluations of the model/prototype. Participants were interviewed in pairs because we realized from previous brainstorming sessions that it is easier and more efficient to search for new ideas when people discuss that way instead of thinking aloud alone [4]. In the interviews we discussed with participants how familiar they are with particular parts of the Virtual garden and what they think about colours, shapes and used materials. In addition, we asked them to place themselves in different situations, for example having a conversation with a friend, taking medicine, being reminded of daily things, management with the residence (smart house) and think how the Virtual garden could provide different services to support these situations [15]. Participants in the evaluations phase were: 11 students (between 21 and 36 years), two mothers (between 30 and 45 years) plus 4 elderly people (60+ years) and 4 more than 80 years old. The evaluation phase lasted from 40 minutes to one and a half hours.

Fig. 3 User with changing the position in the garden can regulation the temperature in the garden.

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5 What do the Evaluation Results show?

The evaluation results show that some characteristics are similar for all age groups: all age groups had no problems with recognizing the model as a garden, and that items on the interface presented a mixture of underwater plants and plants in the garden. All of them at the beginning started to interact with the garden with enthusiasm but after they had achieved certain composition or meaning they started to get bored. All of them pointed out that they wished that the prototype could provide more interaction, such as: voice, transformation (growing), smell, glowing, changing of colours. Naturally we identified some differences as well, for example: elderly people 60 and over2 thought that the garden was too simplistic for them in the sense of interaction. This group wished the garden was more realistic with regards to the meaning of colour and texture (for example like artificial flowers). This participant cant imagine their self as a potential user, they rather to talk about others older users: children and people with special needs. This is in contrast to the elderly of the fourth life period individuals of 80 and over who do not have much desire to accept a different way of thinking that they already have.3 Most of them had never used IT before and that is why the interaction needs to be as clear and simple as possible. We also identified that betweengeneration collaboration around such devices might be difficult as the technological knowledge and social gap across these age groups is too big. It might be the case that with age, imagination declines and that might be why this age group cannot see the Virtual garden as a useful device.

6 What will the Future Research be?

One probable reason why the product did not satisfy any of the age groups completely is because the designed result was developed by the designer after analysing empirical data from the brainstorming sessions and the interviews. We can see future research in two possible directions: one is improving the design process with major inclusion of users. Higher usability and acceptability could be achieved with the use of participatory design methods. Secondly, research is needed to better understand how low fidelity prototypes could be used as means of data collection from such age groups. It is apparent that older participants had a problem in using imagination in how a low fidelity prototype could be transformed into a realistic and functional device.

Their characteristics are devotion of one's attention to their family (financial aid to children, baby-sitting grandchildren), higher education and financial standards, better residence possibilities, low-level dependence (advising, prevention), active use of free time and a healthier life and a second career[6]. 3 Maybe also because of their characteristics that are: concentrating on themselves and their own state of health, high degree of dependence (multi-illness, dementia) which often results in low self esteem, decline of physical and cognitive skills abilities resulting in lower mobility and doing activities that demand little physical strength (reading, watching TV, listening to the radio) [6, 18].

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