Connected Resources

Abstract

The project aims to encourage "young-older people" to age resourcefully. Although they are better at appropriating artefacts, technologies, and other people available around them to solve challenges as they age, the current "smart products" for those people do not allow them to do so because of their use scenarios rigidly prescribed. To challenge this situation, the graduation project seeks to design Connected Resources, artefacts with internet connection to support older people's inherent abilities of resourcefulness. The project involves two studies to find out design guidelines to design for resourcefulness with Research through Design approach.
The first study addresses artefactual dimensions of openness necessary to support resourcefulness. It reveals while some dimensions, such as interfaces to expand capability and accessibility of knowledge, need to open; other dimensions, such as newness, signifiers, and structural simplicity, are required to close for giving artefacts familiarity and an entry point to explore personal adaptations.
The second study approaches a variety of uses in which a workshop with older people using working prototypes of Connected Resources takes place. They imagine seven use scenarios of Connected
Resources in their everyday practices, resulting in identifying six dimensions of the variety of uses, e.g., use in both fixed and mobile space, use with both user-generated content and crowed-generated content.
With these design guidelines, the final Connected Resources are designed: the four combinable objects, which have different digital and physical capabilities, and the online platform, which encourages older people to learn each other's strategies to find new uses. They are designed with the principle of simplicity, familiarity, and playfulness to fit into older people’s everyday practices found through these studies.
The project reflects knowledge gained in the Research through Design and closes the thesis addressing directions for future work.