Recruiting older adults in the wild: Reflections on challenges and lessons learned from research experience

Jomara Binda, Xiying Wang, John M. Carroll

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

It is important to understand the older adults prior to the design process. The understanding can better facilitate design conversations between the researchers and the older adults. In this paper, we discussed our experiences of building a relationship with the older adults in a local senior center. However, we encountered challenges when we tried to engaging the older adults, for example, skepticism towards the research purposes, reluctance to talk, and the difficulty of collecting data under a fun and leisure environment. We learned that creating relationships is important to engage older adults in research. Engaging the older adults in interactive dynamics could facilitate richer conversations with the older adults. Based on our lessons from interacting with the older adults, we propose that building long-term relationships and engaging older adults in fun research and design activities can facilitate a more successful participatory design.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 12th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2018
EditorsNoga Minsky, Venet Osmani
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Print)9781450364508
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Event12th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2018 - New York, United States
Duration: May 21 2018May 24 2018

Publication series

NamePervasiveHealth: Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare
ISSN (Print)2153-1633

Other

Other12th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York
Period5/21/185/24/18

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Health Informatics

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