Engaging Older Adults in the Participatory Design of Intelligent Health Search Tools

Abstract

Engaging older adults (adults 65+) in technology design can be challenging. At the same time, it is becoming ever more important to ensure inclusion of diverse perspectives in design research. Several strategies currently exist for successfully recruiting and engaging older adults in design. However, there is still much to learn about how to effectively engage older adults in the design process. In this position paper, we reflect on our experiences engaging older adults in participatory design of "smart" tools for health information search. We share our study design, including our recruitment process and procedures. We then discuss the strategies we used in the design process and challenges we encountered when designing and implementing our research protocol. We contribute our experiences in an effort to facilitate discussion of strategies and opportunities for including older adults in design research.