PeerRadio and PeerLight. Supporting elderly people in experiencing social moments from home

Abstract: Some elderly people with deteriorating abilities who receive home care service and do not use new technologies miss social content in their everyday lives. In my thesis, I research which role technology can play for these home care receivers in experiencing culture and how social interaction with peers from the same urban neighborhood can be embedded in this cultural experience. Based on my findings, I defined culture as little special moments in everyday life which change the perception of a day positively. Outgoing from fieldwork and literary research, I developed two scenario-based designs, PeerRadio and PeerLight, with the aim to create these moments at home in the elderly people’s everyday lives. PeerRadio is a radio program for home care receivers from the same neighborhood which sends contributions made by the elderly people themselves and gives them a reason to talk to each other. PeerLight is a connected lamp which makes the user’s activity visible at a peer’s home and vice versa and thereby supports caring for each other. Finally, my thesis clarifies how these concepts are answers to the named research questions and how they should be developed further in future works.