Democratizing Design with Aging Adults: Libraries and Senior Centers as Playful Social Public Spaces?

• In Event: Hi-Tech, Low-Tech, Self-Tech: Tactics for the Production and Consumptions of Playful Social Public Spaces - I

Abstract

Aging adults are a relevant, but often overlooked, social group that is critical to the design of inclusive and accessible public spaces. For this paper, we examine how libraries and senior community centers can serve as sites for playful public engagement with aging adults, and how these spaces can help facilitate the democratization of design.

We draw upon in depth qualitative data collected as part of two NIH funded projects on improving eHealth literacy of aging adults. Both studies took place in libraries and senior community centers; and necessitated certain social and technological affordances. In conducting this research, we noticed how the testing sites themselves can be supportive spaces for social connection and learning. This paper considers how these sites can serve as social spaces for aging adults and how they can benefit from active engagement between researchers and older adults.

Through insights collected from both older adult participants and researchers, we explore emergent themes about the functionality of libraries and senior community centers sites as playful and engaging social spaces for aging adults.

Our primary research questions are:

How do libraries and senior community centers differ in their approach to social engagement?

How can public spaces such as these serve older adults to access, assess, and use electronic health information?

How can the characteristics of community spaces impact older adults’ perceptions and use of these spaces as sites for access to eHealth information?

How can the design of these spaces affect older adults’ social participation in design research activities?

Authors

• Nathan Davis, University of Texas - Austin

• Kristina Shiroma, University of Texas at Austin

• Atami Sagna, Univesity of Texas at Austin

• Bo Xie, Univesity of Texas at Austin