Creating User-Friendly Healing Environments with Adaptable Lighting for Senior Citizens

Identifying user-friendly use cases for technologies under development is often a difficult endeavor, especially when designing healing environments for the elderly, due to the absence of comparable technologies and the little technology experience in the target group. The principles of user centered design (UCD) have been successfully applied with professionals and lead users, but it is much more difficult for the development of healing environments like AAL-systems (ambient assisted living systems). This article describes the user-centered development of use cases for an innovative lighting system ("Guiding-Light") aimed at increasing the independence and well-being of senior adults.