Overall, Elder-Spaces will make sure that the platform appeals to people who are not familiar with technology without making users technophobes; on the contrary Elder- Spaces will be proposed as a means to optimising quality of life (e.g., more recreation opportunities, improved healthcare and better mobility).
In the Elder-Spaces world:
- Applications are delivered in a human-centric manner;
- Face-to-face contacts remain important and Elder-Spaces acts as a facilitator to such contact;
- Working life is of primary importance, since it is a decisive factor affecting older people’s social life and Elder-Spaces acts as a facilitator and promoter of the “older worker” concept;
- Elderly users participate in the evolution of the platform.
Objectives
The main goal of the Elder-Spaces project is to introduce a radical shift on the way social networking is delivered to and used by older adults (typically healthy individuals aged 55+), with a view to stimulate seniors to join social networks and accordingly benefit in terms of their social activation, active living and overall quality of life.
To this end, Elder Spaces will design a novel ICT based social networking platform (beyond existing networks for seniors) along with a range of applications that will be delivered over this platform.
Expected results and impact
Elder-Spaces will provide a range of applications (over the project’s social networking platform) tailored to the needs of older user groups based on:
- Appropriate data sets, semantics and information;
- Customised social networking functionalities (based on the above data sets), such as groups, games and training programmes;
- Appropriate older people friendly user interfaces, such as ergonomic devices and interaction modalities;
- The business plan for the deployment of the Elder-Spaces applications will be developed at the end of the project.
