Ya-Hui Lee, Hsien-Ta Cha, Yi-Fen Wang

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Society and Information Technologies: ICSIT 2023, pp. 51-56 (2023); https://doi.org/10.54808/ICSIT2023.01.51

Ya-Hui Lee
Department of Adult and Continuing Education, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi County, Taiwan

Hsien-Ta Cha
Department of Adult and Continuing Education, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi County, Taiwan

Yi-Fen Wang
Department of Senior Citizen Services, National Tainan Junior College of Nursing, Tainan City, Taiwan

Cite this paper as:
Lee, Y., Cha, H., Wang, Y. (2023). How to Develop Assistive Technology for Elderly Care: Designers' Perspectives. In N. Callaos, L. Robertson, B. Sánchez, T. Tran (Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Society and Information Technologies: ICSIT 2023, pp. 51-56. International Institute of Informatics and Cybernetics. https://doi.org/10.54808/ICSIT2023.01.51

The objective of this study was to examine the research and development process of elderly assistive technology products. The researcher selected 11 developers of elderly assistive technology products for semi-structured interviews. Respondents developed three types of products, including system platforms, sensing devices, and positioning devices. The findings include: (a) The research and development of assistive technology products for the elderly were motivated by the market demand for the elderly population and the shortage of caregivers, the need to improve the quality of care, and the desire to solve the manpower shortage through technology products. (b) The developers didn't understand the characteristics of the elderly and used laboratory simulations to develop the products; thus, the products were not accepted by elderly users, including: the elderly don't like wearable devices and worry about personal information leakage. (c) The developers conducted a needs assessment by interviewing and observing in the field to understand the users’ characteristics and pain points, to understand the users’ needs. This study suggests that developers should receive systematic training courses on elderly education to understand the development and characteristics of elderly citizens so as to reduce research and development difficulties and design technology care products suitable for elderly users.