This paper describes the analysis and design of a tablet-based gaming platform for seniors that promotes their quality-of-life and well-being by incorporating cognitive training mechanisms. A literature review of age-related changes and games for seniors indicated 'casual games' have the characteristics necessary to provide an enjoyable user experience for the senior audience. Having concluded that these games should target cognitive stimulation, the authors analysed mechanisms to achieve this purpose and compiled them into a matrix to be used as a starting point for the games design process. In parallel, the authors also gathered seniors' preferences and requirements regarding games, through observations and a game book. Low-, medium-, and high-fidelity prototypes for a gaming cognitive platform were developed, evaluated with end-users, and iteratively improved. Results showed that seniors easily interacted with the platform and were willing to use it in the future. Re sults and experience led to the identification of 10 rules of thumb that can be beneficial if applied to related projects. This paper concludes by identifying exciting areas for future research and development

This paper presents a list of heuristics to evaluate smartphone apps for older adults. It further verifies the usefulness of the proposed list through a study performed with two groups of five expert evaluators, who inspected two popular health and fitness smartphone apps -- Nike+ and Run keeper -- through heuristic evaluation. Additionally, the evaluators completed a post-evaluation survey to provide feedback to the researchers about the usefulness, strengths and gaps of the heuristics list. The results of the heuristic evaluations and post questionnaires demonstrate both a comprehensive application of the heuristics as well as an overall positive assessment of their quality and potential to identify usability issues of smartphone apps targeted at older adults.

Collaborative robots (cobots) could help humans in tasks that are mundane, dangerous or where direct human contact carries risk. Yet, the collaboration between humans and robots is severely limited by the aspects of the safety and comfort of human operators. In this paper, we outline the use of extended reality (XR) as a way to test and develop collaboration with robots. We focus on virtual reality (VR) in simulating collaboration scenarios and the use of cobot digital twins. This is specifically useful in situations that are difficult or even impossible to safely test in real life, such as dangerous scenarios. We describe using XR simulations as a means to evaluate collaboration with robots without putting humans at harm. We show how an XR setting enables combining human behavioral data, subjective self-reports, and biosignals signifying human comfort, stress and cognitive load during collaboration. Several works demonstrate XR can be used to train human operators and provide them with augmented reality (AR) interfaces to enhance their performance with robots. We also provide a first attempt at what could become the basis for a human–robot collaboration testing framework, specifically for designing and testing factors affecting human–robot collaboration. The use of XR has the potential to change the way we design and test cobots, and train cobot operators, in a range of applications: from industry, through healthcare, to space operations.

This paper reports on the outcomes of the first phase of the eCAALYX project - an European project which aim is to develop a complete solution that improves the quality of life of the older adult with chronic conditions by monitoring his health and by improving the communication with his caretakers. Specifically, the authors are responsible for creating a TV user interface for older adults with chronic conditions. The work described followed a multi-disciplinary approach strongly influenced by Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methodologies. The main contributions of this paper are two-fold and materialize into i) a user research study that covers aspects such as perception, cognition, mental and psychosocial changes that occur with age and ii) an example-based description of the process of creating personas. John, the diabetic persona, is the example provided that abstracts the process followed to generate the remaining personas in the project

This paper explores the intersection of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) concepts of age-friendly communities and The Blue Zones^® checklists and how the potential of integrating the two frameworks for the development of a contemporary framework can address the current gaps in the literature as well as consider the inclusion of technology and environmental press. The commentary presented here sets out initial thoughts and explorations that have the potential to impact societies on a global scale and provides recommendations for a roadmap to consider new ways to think about the impact of health and wellbeing of older adults and their families. Additionally, this paper highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of the aforementioned checklists and frameworks by examining the literature including the WHO age-friendly framework, the smart age-friendly ecosystem (SAfE) framework and the Blue Zones^® checklists. We argue that gaps exist in the current literature and take a critical approach as a way to be inclusive of technology and the environments in which older adults live. This commentary contributes to the fields of gerontology, gerontechnology, anthropology, and geography, because we are proposing a roadmap which sets out the need for future work which requires multi- and interdisciplinary research to be conducted for the respective checklists to evolve.