When Simple Technologies Makes Life Difficult Pursuing experienced simplicity in welfare technology for elderly

In this paper, we use the case of elderly living with welfare technology to demonstrate how technology intended to be simple often defeats its own end. We discuss why simplicity requires attention and consideration not only to the contextdetached design but also to the design in use as applying analytic and imagined simplicity does not guarantee experienced simplicity. We provide examples and evaluation results to help argue for our perspective on simplicity and present five implications for design pursuing simplicity.

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