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A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study
BACKGROUND: Aging of the global population is slowly paving the way for new markets for care products and services. The desire of older people to maintain their independence while remaining at home is boosting the development of ambient assisted living (AAL) solutions. Lack of user awareness of AAL...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8081161/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33646134 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18164 |
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author | Abrantes, Diogo Teles, Soraia Tavares de Sousa, Rita Freitas, Alberto Vieira-Marques, Pedro Ferreira, Ana |
author_facet | Abrantes, Diogo Teles, Soraia Tavares de Sousa, Rita Freitas, Alberto Vieira-Marques, Pedro Ferreira, Ana |
author_sort | Abrantes, Diogo |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Aging of the global population is slowly paving the way for new markets for care products and services. The desire of older people to maintain their independence while remaining at home is boosting the development of ambient assisted living (AAL) solutions. Lack of user awareness of AAL solutions paired with an insufficient use of user-centered and participatory design approaches in the development of these products has hindered the uptake of these solutions by end users. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe the usability and users’ experiences within a novel platform, ActiveAdvice, aimed at offering advice and a holistic market overview of AAL products and services. METHODS: Usability tests were performed on the developed platform among identified prospective end users, with 32 older adults and informal carers from 4 European countries being part of the user tests. The usability and appeal of the web interface design, information flow, and information architecture were analyzed by collecting both objective and subjective measures. These would include pretest and posttest surveys, along with a series of think-aloud tasks to be performed within the platform. RESULTS: The outcomes suggest that the ActiveAdvice platform’s objectives and functionalities are mostly aligned with the needs and expectations of end users, who demonstrated interest in using it, stressing its purpose along with its simple and intuitive interaction. Task completion rates were high, and participants had good satisfaction rates when navigating the platform. However, the tests still advocate for an improved design at some points and better disclosure of information. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings shed light on a few peculiarities of interface design, information architecture, user needs, and preferred functionalities, which should be applied to future developments of similar platforms with related services. The AAL field could benefit from tools supporting the dissemination of available AAL solutions and how they can improve one's quality of life. These tools may benefit not only older adults but also caregivers, business owners, and governmental employees. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8081161 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80811612021-05-06 A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study Abrantes, Diogo Teles, Soraia Tavares de Sousa, Rita Freitas, Alberto Vieira-Marques, Pedro Ferreira, Ana JMIR Aging Original Paper BACKGROUND: Aging of the global population is slowly paving the way for new markets for care products and services. The desire of older people to maintain their independence while remaining at home is boosting the development of ambient assisted living (AAL) solutions. Lack of user awareness of AAL solutions paired with an insufficient use of user-centered and participatory design approaches in the development of these products has hindered the uptake of these solutions by end users. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe the usability and users’ experiences within a novel platform, ActiveAdvice, aimed at offering advice and a holistic market overview of AAL products and services. METHODS: Usability tests were performed on the developed platform among identified prospective end users, with 32 older adults and informal carers from 4 European countries being part of the user tests. The usability and appeal of the web interface design, information flow, and information architecture were analyzed by collecting both objective and subjective measures. These would include pretest and posttest surveys, along with a series of think-aloud tasks to be performed within the platform. RESULTS: The outcomes suggest that the ActiveAdvice platform’s objectives and functionalities are mostly aligned with the needs and expectations of end users, who demonstrated interest in using it, stressing its purpose along with its simple and intuitive interaction. Task completion rates were high, and participants had good satisfaction rates when navigating the platform. However, the tests still advocate for an improved design at some points and better disclosure of information. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings shed light on a few peculiarities of interface design, information architecture, user needs, and preferred functionalities, which should be applied to future developments of similar platforms with related services. The AAL field could benefit from tools supporting the dissemination of available AAL solutions and how they can improve one's quality of life. These tools may benefit not only older adults but also caregivers, business owners, and governmental employees. JMIR Publications 2021-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8081161/ /pubmed/33646134 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18164 Text en ©Diogo Abrantes, Soraia Teles, Rita Tavares de Sousa, Alberto Freitas, Pedro Vieira-Marques, Ana Ferreira. Originally published in JMIR Aging (http://aging.jmir.org), 01.03.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Aging, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://aging.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Abrantes, Diogo Teles, Soraia Tavares de Sousa, Rita Freitas, Alberto Vieira-Marques, Pedro Ferreira, Ana A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title | A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title_full | A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title_fullStr | A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title_full_unstemmed | A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title_short | A Multipurpose Platform for Ambient Assisted Living (ActiveAdvice): Usability Study |
title_sort | multipurpose platform for ambient assisted living (activeadvice): usability study |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8081161/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33646134 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18164 |
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