Findings from a participatory evaluation of a smart home application for older adults.

The aim of this paper is to present a participatory evaluation of an actual "smart home" project implemented in an independent retirement facility. Using the participatory evaluation process, residents guided the research team through development and implementation of the initial phase of a smart home project designed to assist residents to remain functionally independent and age in place. We recruited nine residents who provided permission to install the technology in their apartments. We conducted a total of 75 interviews and three observational sessions. Residents expressed overall positive perceptions of the sensor technologies and did not feel that these interfered with their daily activities. The process of adoption and acceptance of the sensors included three phases, familiarization, adjustment and curiosity, and full integration. Residents did not express privacy concerns. They provided detailed feedback and suggestions that were integrated into the redesign of the system. They also reported a sense of control resulting from their active involvement in the evaluation process. Observational sessions confirmed that the sensors were not noticeable and residents did not change their routines. The participatory evaluation approach not only empowers end-users but it also allows for the implementation of smart home systems that address residents' needs.

[1]  M. Patton.  Qualitative research and evaluation methods , 1980 .

[2]  James C. Bezdek,et al.  Pattern Recognition with Fuzzy Objective Function Algorithms , 1981, Advanced Applications in Pattern Recognition.

[3]  Florence Asombang,et al.  [The prevention of falls by the elderly]. , 1991, Servir.

[4]  James J. Callahan,et al.  Aging in Place , 2019 .

[5]  James M. Keller,et al.  The possibilistic C-means algorithm: insights and recommendations , 1996, IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst..

[6]  Edward T. Jackson,et al.  Knowledge shared : participatory evaluation in development cooperation , 1998 .

[7]  M Chan,et al.  Alarm communication network to help carers of the elderly for safety purposes: a survey of a project. , 1999, International journal of rehabilitation research. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Rehabilitationsforschung. Revue internationale de recherches de readaptation.

[8]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  The Aware Home: A Living Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing Research , 1999, CoBuild.

[9]  D. Mills.  Introduction to Action Research: Social Research for Social Change , 2000 .

[10]  Mary Zajicek,et al.  Interface design for older adults , 2001, WUAUC'01.

[11]  Rachelle S. Heller,et al.  Proceedings of the 2001 EC/NSF workshop on Universal accessibility of ubiquitous computing: providing for the elderly , 2001 .

[12]  Peter Gregor,et al.  Designing for dynamic diversity: making accessible interfaces for older people , 2001, WUAUC'01.

[13]  B. Israel,et al.  Community-based participatory research: policy recommendations for promoting a partnership approach in health research. , 2001, Education for health.

[14]  Zhihai He,et al.  Recognizing Falls from Silhouettes , 2006, 2006 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[15]  Karen L. Courtney,et al.  Brief Review: Defining Obtrusiveness in Home Telehealth Technologies: A Conceptual Framework , 2006, J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc..

[16]  James M. Keller,et al.  Assessing Physical Performance of Elders Using Fuzzy Logic , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems.

[17]  D. Greenwood,et al.  Introduction to Action Research , 2007 .

[18]  Mauro Birattari,et al.  Swarm Intelligence , 2012, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[19]  James M. Keller,et al.  Linguistic summarization of video for fall detection using voxel person and fuzzy logic , 2009, Comput. Vis. Image Underst..