Research with older adults has hinted at the ways that elements beyond the interface play a role in technology use, including videoconferencing. To further understand the range of materials and resources involved, we studied videoconferencing use by ten older individuals with cognitive concerns in a week-long study of interviews, observations, and a modified diary study. Our analysis identified that objects extending beyond software and hardware play a role in videoconferencing, including paper-based objects, personal items, and objects in the built environment. These objects support participants by externalizing information difficult to recall, distributing cognitive effort across time, and lowering cognitive load through their spatial placement and affordances. These insights point to opportunities for researchers working with older people to focus on the work happening outside of today's interfaces. We also discuss how the lens of distributed cognition could help us design better technologies to support age-related cognitive impairment.

Research on technology for older people focuses on older people's experiences-and understandably so. However, the phenomena of othering, or seeing this group as different and worse off, is a persistent problem. In this project, we turned inwards through an 8-month collaborative autoethnography to understand our own experiences with technology issues and supporting others in technology use. We found that each member of our mixed age group faced pervasive and burdensome technology issues and recognized that some of the burden is associated with the evolution of technology tools. Our work contributes an expanded understanding of aging as a sociotechnical process and identifies counternarratives to implicit assumptions we held as HCI researchers working with older people. Our research also shows how reflexive positional methods can surface often unexamined experiences with technology issues and aging among researchers.

HCI research increasingly focuses on everyday life to inform technology design for older adults. Routines, a key aspect of everyday life, have been studied to contextualize technology use. Our work brings attention to understanding of routines around videoconferencing technology among older adults with cognitive concerns. We conducted a week-long study involving observations, interviews, and a modified diary study with six older adults with cognitive concerns who videoconference at least once a week. Our analysis revealed how routines helped people adapt to videoconferencing constraints, how participants navigated disruptions to their videoconferencing routines, and the kinds of routines that were more challenging to manage when faced disruptions. In the discussion, we describe why routines are particularly important to study and support for people with cognitive concerns, the importance of studying older adults' routines to support technology use in HCI, and methods that can enrich HCI research by uncovering insights into routines.

Design workshops are a popular approach to include older adults in the technology design process. However, formative design sessions with older adults have had unexpected outcomes such as the non-use of traditional design materials like craft-based prototyping supplies or disengagement from design activities. Analyzing the engagement of 32 older adults across two design workshops, this paper sheds insights on some of these outcomes. Contributing to a growing body of HCI research on understanding older adults' participation in design, we provide an understanding of how design materials can shape older adults' engagement in formative design activities. Our discussion furthers research on understanding who older adults design for and why, argues for a different understanding of creative expression, and offers considerations for choosing design materials.

Much research on older people with memory concerns is focused on tracking and informed by the priorities of others. In this paper, we seek to understand the potential that people with memory concerns see in tracking. We conducted interviews with 29 participants with concerns about their memory and engaged in an affective writing approach. We find a range of potentials that can be traced to how participants are already self-tracking. Emotions associated with these potentials vary: from acceptance to resistance, and positive anticipation to aversion. Participants are emotionally motivated to foreclose possibilities in some instances and keep them open in others. While individual and unique, potential is structured by forces that include individual routines, relationships with others, and macro-level institutions and cultural contexts. We reflect on these findings in the context of research on self-tracking with older adults, designing with ambiguity, and forces that structure the experience of living with memory concerns.

Conversational voice assistants are often imbued with personality and human-like characteristics (e.g., gender). While researchers have begun to examine and design for the downstream societal impacts of voice assistants encoding characteristics such as gender, we know little about other human-like characteristics such as age that are encoded in an artificial, yet, anthropomorphic voice. As older adults continue to adopt voice assistants, we brought older adults into an activity to customize human-like characteristics for their voice assistant. Our findings reveal the different stereotypes and assumptions individuals associated with voice assistant characteristics (e.g., age, gender, race). We also describe individuals' motivations behind customizing or not customizing these characteristics. We discuss how biases get encoded through our design process, marginalizing older adults and other non-dominant user groups and call for a need to examine the systemic, yet unspoken, power structures encoded in anthropomorphic technologies.

While videoconferencing is a promising technology, it may present unique challenges and barriers for older adults with cognitive concerns. This paper presents a deconstructed view of videoconferencing technology use using a sociological dramaturgical framework developed by Erving Goffman. Our study recruited 17 older adults with varying cognitive concerns, employing technology discussion groups, interviews, and observations to gather data. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, we explore videoconferencing use among older adults with cognitive concerns, focusing on three major areas: the "performances and roles" where users adapt to new roles through videoconferencing; the "backstage," which involves the physical and logistical setup; and the "frontstage," where people communicate through audio and visual channels to present a desired impression. Our discussion generates insights into how deconstructing these elements can inform more meaningful and accessible HCI design.

Activity tracking has the potential to promote active lifestyles among older adults. However, current activity tracking technologies may inadvertently perpetuate ageism by focusing on age-related health risks. Advocating for a personalized approach in activity tracking technology, we sought to understand what activities older adults find meaningful to track and the underlying values of those activities. We conducted a reflective interview study following a 7-day activity journaling with 13 participants. We identified various underlying values motivating participants to track activities they deemed meaningful. These values, whether competing or aligned, shape the desirability of activities. Older adults appreciate low-exertion activities, but they are difficult to track. We discuss how these activities can become central in designing activity tracking systems. Our research offers insights for creating value-driven, personalized activity trackers that resonate more fully with the meaningful activities of older adults.

Researchers are studying makerspaces as one way to support older adults in learning about and using new technologies and tools. In this paper, through a long-term (34 months), ethnographic approach, we study the ways that older adults arranged sociotechnical resources to sustain the community use of a makerspace. Our analysis identifies three interconnected resources that were developed: an adaptive staffing approach that could withstand constant personnel shifts and shortages; structured activities to draw interest and overcome challenges associated with learning to use the machines; and reference materials to support individuals in independent usage of the space. We describe the issues that arose as time went on with each of these resource types, and how individuals affiliated with the makerspace adapted the resources to address these issues. In the discussion, we extend best practices by reflecting on strategies that worked well in the makerspace, such as drawing interest through introductory classes, as well as different purposes for reference materials to support technology use.

Numerous digital reminder solutions have been created on smartphones, tablets, and smart home devices, to support people with dementia. Yet, these digital reminder systems often overlook the importance of non-digital memory aids, such as paper calendars, diaries, and household objects, in the lives of people with dementia. Given recent work suggests that with progression of dementia, users are likely to minimize use of digital devices, accounting for non-digital practices around remembering presents an opportunity that can be leveraged when designing reminder technologies for people with dementia. This poster proposes a voice-based reminder system that connects both physical and digital reminders through embodied home objects and can be customized to the unique routines of the individual with dementia. We present the system architecture and usage scenarios that we implemented for feedback and iteration in future participatory design studies.

Recent technological advances are enabling HCI researchers to explore interaction possibilities for remote XR collaboration using high-fidelity reconstructions of physical activity spaces. However, creating these reconstructions often lacks user involvement with an overt focus on capturing sensory context that does not necessarily augment an informal social experience. This work seeks to understand social context that can be important for reconstruction to enable XR applications for informal instructional scenarios. Our study involved the evaluation of an XR remote guidance prototype by 8 intergenerational groups of closely related gardeners using reconstructions of personally meaningful spaces in their gardens. Our findings contextualize physical objects and areas with various motivations related to gardening and detail perceptions of XR that might affect the use of reconstructions for remote interaction. We discuss implications for user involvement to create reconstructions that better translate real-world experience, encourage reflection, incorporate privacy considerations, and preserve shared experiences with XR as a medium for informal intergenerational activities.

Researchers support race, gender, and age diverse groups of people to create with maker electronics. These groups include older adults, who are often overlooked as not interested or capable of learning new technologies due to ageist stereotypes. One approach, often involving e-textiles, leverages crafting as a bridge to broaden participation in making. We investigated ways to broaden participation in maker electronics for older adults by remotely co-designing e-textile projects with 6 older adult crafters over the course of 5 workshop sessions for a total of 45 hours. We developed a deeper understanding of their practices, identifying a Planner-Improviser Spectrum for how they approached their craft, and created medium fidelity prototypes. Our design implications draw on our participants’ crafting experience and their experience in the workshop to highlight what e-textile toolkit designers can learn from skilled older adult crafters, such as selecting familiar materials, supporting aesthetic goals, and making electronics more attainable.

Studies find that older adults want control over how technologies are used in their care, but how it can be operationalized through design remains to be clarified. We present findings from a large survey (n=825) of a well-characterized U.S. online cohort that provides actionable evidence of the importance of designing for control over monitoring technologies. This uniquely large, age-diverse sample allows us to compare needs across age and other characteristics with insights about future users and current older adults (n=496 >64), including those concerned about their own memory loss (n=201). All five control options, which are not currently enabled, were very or extremely important to most people across age. Findings indicate that comfort with a range of care technologies is contingent on having privacy- and other control-enabling options. We discuss opportunities for design to meet these user needs that demand course correction through attentive, creative work.

With the rising usage of mobile phones by people with mild dementia, and the documented barriers to technology use that exist for people with dementia, there is an open opportunity to study the specifics of mobile phone use by people with dementia. In this work we provide a first step towards filling this gap through an interview study with fourteen people with mild to moderate dementia. Our analysis yields insights into mobile phone use by people with mild to moderate dementia, challenges they experience with mobile phone use, and their ideas to address these challenges. Based on these findings, we discuss design opportunities to help achieve more accessible and supportive technology use for people with dementia. Our work opens up new opportunities for the design of systems focused on augmenting and enhancing the abilities of people with dementia.

Intergenerational social interactions are beneficial for bridging generational gaps, strengthening family bonds, and improving social cohesiveness. However, opportunities for in-person intergenerational social interactions are decreasing as families become increasingly geographically dispersed. Researchers are examining how technology might support these interactions. Extended Reality (XR) is an emerging technology that has shown potential for supporting immersive remote interactions but might cause an "experience asymmetry" in an intergenerational setting. In this poster we contrast the user experience of younger and older participants engaging in remote gardening sessions with our social XR prototypes. We present systemic influence factors that affected user experience of participants from different age groups differently with our XR prototypes. We discuss potential approaches to mitigate their effects based on observational learning and becoming aware of designer biases.

There is growing interest in HCI to study ways to support access to accurate, accessible, relevant online health information for different populations. Yet, there remains a need to understand the barriers that are posed by the way our platforms are designed as well as how we might overcome these barriers for people with dementia. To address this, we conducted sixteen interviews and observation sessions with people with mild to moderate dementia. Our analysis uncovered four barriers to online health information and corresponding mitigation strategies that participants employed. We discuss how HCI researchers may apply these findings towards new technical approaches and standards concerning information accessibility and credibility for neurodiverse populations. Finally, we broaden the scope of HCI research to include investigations of the accessibility and credibility of online information for people with age-related cognitive impairment independent of proxies.

Current activity tracking technologies are largely trained on younger adults’ data, which can lead to solutions that are not well-suited for older adults. To build activity trackers for older adults, it is crucial to collect training data with them. To this end, we examine the feasibility and challenges with older adults in collecting activity labels by leveraging speech. Specifically, we built MyMove, a speech-based smartwatch app to facilitate the in-situ labeling with a low capture burden. We conducted a 7-day deployment study, where 13 older adults collected their activity labels and smartwatch sensor data, while wearing a thigh-worn activity monitor. Participants were highly engaged, capturing 1,224 verbal reports in total. We extracted 1,885 activities with corresponding effort level and timespan, and examined the usefulness of these reports as activity labels. We discuss the implications of our approach and the collected dataset in supporting older adults through personalized activity tracking technologies.

As extended reality (XR) systems become increasingly available, XR-based remote instruction is being adopted for diverse purposes in professional settings such as surgery and field servicing. Hobbyists have been well-studied in HCI and may similarly benefit from remote skill-sharing. However, little is known about how XR technologies might support expert-novice collaboration for skilled hobby activities. This paper examines the potential and limitations of XR to connect experts and novices for one such activity: gardening. Through two studies involving 27 expert and novice gardeners, we designed prototypes to understand 1) practitioner perceptions of XR and remote skill-sharing in the garden and 2) what kinds of interactions can be supported in XR for expert-novice groups. We discuss design opportunities and challenges for XR systems in supporting informal connecting interactions and meaningful sensory interactions with a remote environment during skill-sharing.

Self-management research in HCI has addressed a variety of conditions. Yet, this literature has largely focused on neurotypical populations and chronic conditions that can be managed, leaving open questions of what self-management might look like for populations with progressive cognitive impairment. Grounded in interviews with seventeen technology savvy people with mild to moderate dementia, our analysis reveals their use of technological and social resources as part of the work of self-management. We detail how participants design self-management systems to enable desired futures, function well in their social world, and maintain control. Our discussion broadens the notion of self-management to include future-oriented, sociotechnical, self-determinate design. We advocate for expanding the way technologists, designers, and HCI scholars view people with mild to moderate dementia to recognize them as inventive creators and capable actors in self-management.

Makerspaces are being introduced in a wide variety of settings, including community settings such as schools and libraries. Older adults are one group for whom making agendas are being pursued, with envisioned outcomes such as supporting agency and well-being. However, research on making and DIY with older adults typically study individuals who are already engaged in making practices or bring individuals in to a technology environment that has already been created. In this paper, we study the older adult-driven formation of a makerspace in an independent living community. Through an ethnographically-informed approach, we studied the ways that individuals considered appropriate allocation of resources towards a makerspace, scoped activities, evaluated goals, and made trade-ofs. Our analysis is centered around describing the way that this makerspace formed as well as three ways that individuals made sense of the makerspace as the planning unfolded: the openness of a space that promises to cater to interests of the population; the promise of a makerspace to involve more residents in technology, but the need to obscure the technology to make it appealing; and a valuation of the return on investment for limited fnancial and space resources. Our discussion contributes to supporting and studying early adoption of technology by older adults, complicates visions of "making for all," and presents considerations regarding the often under-specifed community of a makerspace.

Research into companion robots for older adults, including those who are socially isolated and lonely, continues to grow. Although some insight into older adults' preferences for various robotic types and functionality is emerging, we lack research examining how these robots fulfil or challenge a range of values and aspirations individuals have in later life. This study examines the attitudes and perspectives of 16 older adults (aged 65+) living independently but alone in their own homes, who were interviewed and shown videos depicting three distinctive companion robots: a talking assistant; a roving toylike vehicle; and a robotic dog. This approach illuminated values, preferences, and needs amongst older people that are vital for understanding the potential of companion robots. In comparing the robots, participants expressed concerns about the impact of different companion robots on their abilities and skills, their sense of autonomy and control over their lives, and the maintenance of several kinds of dignity. These results inform user-centered design and use of companion robots for older people living alone and independently.

Health disclosure at work is complicated for people with invisible chronic conditions. Due to the lack of visible symptoms, invisible conditions affect the work life of people in ways that are not obvious to others. This study examines how people disclose and conceal their conditions in the workplace and opens the design space for this topic. In the first phase, we analyzed posts on two subreddit forums, r/migraine and r/fibromyalgia, and found a range of strategies that individuals use to disclose or conceal their conditions. In the second phase, we created five technological design concepts based on these strategies that were shown to eight people with migraines or fibromyalgia in semi-structured interviews. Based on these phases, we contribute understandings of disclosure and concealment of invisible conditions in the workplace for future research, such as potential areas for intervention ranging from individual to societal level efforts, as well as the potential and limitations of relying on empathy from others.

Negative attitudes shape experiences with stigmatized conditions such as dementia, from affecting social relationships to influencing willingness to adopt technology. Consequently, attitudinal change has been identified as one lever to improve life for people with stigmatized conditions. Though recognized as a scaleable approach, social media has not been studied in terms of how it should best be designed or deployed to target attitudes and understanding of dementia. Through a mixed methods design with 123 undergraduate college students, we study the effect of being exposed to dementia-related media, including content produced by people with dementia. We selected undergraduate college students as the target of our intervention, as they represent the next generation that will work and interact with individuals with dementia. Our analysis describes changes over the period of two weeks in attitudes and understanding of the condition. The shifts in understanding of dementia that we found in our qualitative analysis were not captured by the instrument we selected to assess understanding of dementia. While small improvements in positive and overall attitudes were seen across all interventions and the control, we observe a different pattern with negative attitudes, where transcriptions of content produced by people with dementia significantly reduced negative attitudes. The discussion presents implications for supporting people with dementia as content producers, doing so in ways that best affect attitudes and understanding by drawing on research on cues and interactive media, and supporting students in changing their perspectives towards people with dementia.

Techlash encapsulates a breaking point reached with the critique of technology companies. To investigate how this whirlwind of rage, inquiry, and accountability affects the lives of tech workers, we conducted interviews with 19 tech workers. Our methodological approach and contribution adopts a style of writing and analysis associated with anthropologist Kathleen Stewart, where we focus on the affective textures of everyday life in an attempt to redirect the temptation to representational thinking to a slowed ethnographic practice. This paper dwells on the affects of tech workers facing critique and scrutiny. Through this approach, we find that emotional habitus conditions the possibilities of personal and political action and inaction in response to critique. By emotional habitus, we refer to the emotional dispositions honed among tech workers by tech culture's rationality and optimism. This habitus must shift if people are to access new ways of relating and acting. We argue for more fruitful attitudes and practices in relation to critique.

Researchers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have long developed technologies for older adults. Recently, researchers are engaging in critical reflections of these approaches. IoT for aging in place is one area around which these conflicting discourses have converged, likely in part driven by government and industry interest. This article introduces diffractive analysis as an approach that examines difference to yield new empirical understandings about our methods and the topics we study. We constructed three analyses of a dataset collected at an IoT design workshop and then conducted a diffractive analysis. We present themes from this analysis regarding the ways that participants are inscribed in our research, considerations related to transferability and novelty between work centered on older adults and other work, and insights about methodologies. Our discussion contributes implications for researchers to form teams and account for their roles in research, as well as recommendations how diffractive analysis can support other research agendas.

Technology design for dementia primarily focuses on cognitive needs. This includes providing task support, accommodating memory changes, and simplifying interfaces by reducing complexity. However, research has demonstrated that dementia affects not only the cognitive abilities of people with dementia, but also their sensory and motor abilities. This work provides a first step towards understanding the interaction between sensory changes and technology use by people with dementia through interviews with people with mild to moderate dementia and practitioners. Our analysis yields an understanding of strategies to use technology to overcome sensory changes associated with dementia as well as barriers to using certain technologies. We present new directions for the design of technologies for people with mild to moderate dementia, including intentional sensory stimulation to facilitate comprehension, as well as opportunities to leverage advances in technology design from other disabilities for dementia.

Technology design for dementia is an active and growing area. Though work to date has largely addressed functional needs, there is a growing recognition of the importance of supporting meaningful activities. However, technology for active, rather than passive, engagement is relatively novel beyond specific applications (e.g., music or reminiscence therapy). To better understand how to support active engagement of people with dementia in activities, we interviewed nineteen practitioners. Our findings reveal differing approaches to making sense of the actions of people with dementia, as well as to engaging them in activities. We discuss the importance of tracing epistemological understandings of dementia to different configurations of technology for people living with dementia and provide a practical guide to support designers to do so. Finally, we discuss considerations for the design of dementia technologies around facilitating self-actualization and managing emotional exposure for care-providers.

Engaging in participatory research in HCI raises numerous ethical complexities such as consent, researcher relationships, and participant compensation. Doing HCI work in the area of dementia amplifies these issues, and researchers in this area are modelling ethical stances to ensure researcher-participant relationships focus on meaningful engagement and care. This paper presents an insight into the kinds of ethical foci required when doing design research with people living with dementia and their carers. We interviewed 22 HCI researchers with experience working in dementia care contexts. Our qualitative analysis outlines subsequent lessons-learned, such as recognition of the participants, self-care, research impact, and subjectivity in ethical review boards. Furthermore, we found the complexity of navigating both "everyday" and more formal, institutional ethics in dementia research has implications beyond the context of working with people with dementia and outline key considerations for ethical practices in socially orientated HCI research.

Gardening is an activity that involves a number of dimensions of increasing interest to HCI and CSCW researchers, including recreation, sustainability, and engagement with nature. This paper considers the garden setting in order to understand the role that collaborative and social computing technologies might play for practitioners engaging in outdoor skilled activities. We conducted participant observations with nine experienced gardeners aged 22-71 years. Through this process, we find that gardeners continuously configure their environments to accommodate their preferences for sociality. They share embodied skills and help others attune to sensory information in person, but also influence learning through the features in their garden that are observed by others. This paper provides an understanding of sociality in the garden, highlights skill sharing as a key domain for design in this space, and contributes design considerations for collaborative technologies in outdoor settings.

Design workshops are a popular means of including older adults in technology development. However, there are open questions around how to best scaffold this participation, particularly in supporting older adults to associate their designs with themselves, rather than designing for an "other older adult." By conducting workshops focusing on envisioning the future of internet of things (IoT) technologies at home, we provide an understanding of how older individuals participate in group activities to conceptualize technology for themselves. We find that at different stages of the design process, individuals shift in who they envision the end user of the technology: at first, they think about common older adult needs, then turn to designing for themselves. Individuals' attitudes towards technology also impact group dynamics along with final design ideas. Our discussion contributes to an understanding of how to support older adults in designing for themselves, new perspectives on aging-in-place technologies, and recommendations for configuring design workshops with older individuals.

Voice assistants embodied in smart speakers (e.g., Amazon Echo, Google Home) enable voice-based interaction that does not necessarily rely on expertise with mobile or desktop computing. Hence, these voice assistants offer new opportunities to different populations, including individuals who are not interested or able to use traditional computing devices such as computers and smartphones. To understand how older adults who use technology infrequently perceive and use these voice assistants, we conducted a 3-week field deployment of the Amazon Echo Dot in the homes of seven older adults. While some types of usage dropped over the 3-week period (e.g., playing music), we observed consistent usage for finding online information. Given that much of this information was health-related, this finding emphasizes the need to revisit concerns about credibility of information with this new interaction medium. Although features to support memory (e.g., setting timers, reminders) were initially perceived as useful, the actual usage was unexpectedly low due to reliability concerns. We discuss how these findings apply to other user groups along with design implications and recommendations for future work on voice-user interfaces.

Courses in user-centered design, where students learn about centering design on the needs of individuals, is one natural point in which accessibility content can be injected into the curriculum. We describe the approach we have taken with sections in the undergraduate User-Centered Design Course at the University of Maryland, College Park. We initially introduced disability and accessibility in four modules: 1) websites and design portfolios, 2) introduction to understanding user needs, 3) prototyping, and 4) UX evaluation. We present a description of this content that was taught as an extended version in one Fall 2018 section and as an abbreviated version in all sections in Spring 2019. Survey results indicate that students' understanding of accessibility and assistive technology increased with the introduction of these modules.

Informed by considerations from medicine and wellness research, experience design, investigations of new and emerging technologies, and sociopolitical critique, HCI researchers have demonstrated that women's health is a complex and rich topic. Turning these research outputs into productive interventions, however, is difficult. We argue that design is well positioned to address such a challenge thanks to its methodological traditions of problem setting and framing situated in synthetic (rather than analytic) knowledge production. In this paper, we focus on designing for experiences of menopause. Building on our prior empirical work on menopause and our commitment to pursue design informed by women's lived experience, we iteratively generated dozens of design frames and accompanying design crits. We document the unfolding of our design reasoning, showing how good-seeming insights nonetheless often lead to bad designs, while working progressively towards stronger insights and design constructs. The latter we offer as a contribution to researchers and practitioners who work at the intersections of women's health and design.

Menopause is a major life change affecting roughly half of the population, resulting in physiological, emotional, and social changes. To understand experiences with menopause holistically, we conducted a study of a subreddit forum. The project was informed by feminist social science methodologies, which center knowledge production on women's lived experiences. Our central finding is that the lived experience of menopause is social: menopause is less about bodily experiences by themselves and more about how experiences with the body become meaningful over time in the social context. We find that gendered marginalization shapes diverse social relationships, leading to widespread feelings of alienation and negative transformation - often expressed in semantically dense figurative language. Research and design can accordingly address menopause not only as a women's health concern, but also as a matter of facilitating social support and a social justice issue.

Recent studies have identified various forms of bias in language-based models, raising concerns about the risk of propagating social biases against certain groups based on sociodemographic factors (e.g., gender, race, geography). In this study, we analyze the treatment of age-related terms across 15 sentiment analysis models and 10 widely-used GloVe word embeddings and attempt to alleviate bias through a method of processing model training data. Our results show significant age bias is encoded in the outputs of many sentiment analysis algorithms and word embeddings, and we can alleviate this bias by manipulating training data.

CSCW research is increasingly interested in the ways that people use technology to discuss health and disability online. In addition to studying how people share information and seek and provide emotional support, a growing area of interest is health activism. In this paper, we analyze how a project centered around sharing "real and raw" experiences with dementia provides a safe platform for people to share their authentic experiences. These accounts counter predominant depictions of dementia and push back on tokenistic involvement of people with this condition. In a study involving observations and interviews with members of this project, we find that people with dementia must negotiate several goals which at times compete with each other: sharing a "real and raw" look at dementia, changing attitudes, showcasing a polished presentation, and inhabiting a safe space. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions for CSCW on configuring a space for dialogue on sensitive topics, health activism, and sharing online with dementia.

As voice-based conversational agents such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant move into our homes, researchers have studied the corresponding privacy implications, embeddedness in these complex social environments, and use by specific user groups. Yet it is unknown how users categorize these devices: are they thought of as just another object, like a toaster? As a social companion? Though past work hints to human-like attributes that are ported onto these devices, the anthropomorphization of voice assistants has not been studied in depth. Through a study deploying Amazon Echo Dot Devices in the homes of older adults, we provide a preliminary assessment of how individuals 1) perceive having social interactions with the voice agent, and 2) ontologically categorize the voice assistants. Our discussion contributes to an understanding of how well-developed theories of anthropomorphism apply to voice assistants, such as how the socioemotional context of the user (e.g., loneliness) drives increased anthropomorphism. We conclude with recommendations for designing voice assistants with the ontological category in mind, as well as implications for the design of technologies for social companionship for older adults.

Sex and intimate technologies are important in people’s everyday lives. A class of technologies that is becoming increasingly more prominent in discussions of the future are sex robots. In this article, we present a qualitative analysis of posts from a forum where people describe their interactions with sex dolls and their motivations for using them through text and photographs. Forum users use dolls as a content authoring interface, imbue them with agency, and construct meaningful sexual relationships with them. Implications for the design of future robots and autonomous agents in humans’ everyday lives are discussed. We highlight that sex dolls are used for more than just sex; they provide fertile ground for embodied fictions and care of the self. Future, customizable technologies for sexual intimacy and wellness should account for this use.

Computational approaches to text analysis are useful in understanding aspects of online interaction, such as opinions and subjectivity in text. Yet, recent studies have identified various forms of bias in language-based models, raising concerns about the risk of propagating social biases against certain groups based on sociodemographic factors (e.g., gender, race, geography). In this study, we contribute a systematic examination of the application of language models to study discourse on aging. We analyze the treatment of age-related terms across 15 sentiment analysis models and 10 widely-used GloVe word embeddings and attempt to alleviate bias through a method of processing model training data. Our results demonstrate that significant age bias is encoded in the outputs of many sentiment analysis algorithms and word embeddings. We discuss the models' characteristics in relation to output bias and how these models might be best incorporated into research.

There is a growing emphasis on designing with people with diverse health experiences rather than designing for them. Yet, collaborative design becomes difficult when working with individuals with health conditions (e.g., stroke, cancer, abuse, depression) that affect their ability or willingness to engage alongside researchers and verbally express themselves. The present paper analyzes how the clinical practice of art therapy engages these individuals in co-creative, visual expression of ideas, thoughts, and experiences. Drawing on interviews with 22 art therapists and over two years of field work in a clinical setting, we detail how art therapists view making as expression for people with complex communication needs. Under this view, we argue that art therapy practice can inspire collaborative design engagements by understanding materials as language, creating space for expression, and sustaining expressions in a broader context. We discuss practical and ethical implications for design work involving individuals with complex communication needs.

In response to a perceived caregiver shortage and need to support aging in place, telehealth home care systems are being developed to provide remote care and monitoring to older people. Though research has examined the experiences of teleoperators delivering care through these systems, we know less about the experiences of older adults receiving this care. We report findings from a three-month study of a tablet-based telehealth home care system that provides support for aging in place. We find that there is a mismatch between the designer's conception of how care should be delivered and the ways that participants were interested in using the system. This mismatch exists in four areas: participants' interest in getting to know the human teleoperators and rejecting the virtual avatar, interrogating the interface to figure out the inner workings of the platform, pushing for a more symmetrical relationship, and negotiating the relation work that they were willing to perform in the "sacred space" of their homes. We draw on the concept of heteromation to understand the political dimensions of telehealth aging in place technologies. We also provide implications and future directions for technologies requiring relation work as well as the design of avatar-based remote companionship.

Sharing online is an important way in which people across the lifespan express themselves, maintain relationships, and connect with others. Yet, people with dementia are often not supported in engaging to the full extent of their abilities, particularly in their interaction with online technology. This paper presents a design case study that examines what it means to design for agency in online sharing involving individuals with dementia. Our work is situated in the context of art therapy for adults with dementia. We present the design and exploration of Moments, a system that allows individuals to share through artwork by manipulating their physical environment. We discuss how designing for agency calls attention to the ways in which the material workspace, including the tools we introduce, and the surrounding social context participate in the creation of agency.

Designing new technologies with and for individuals with dementia is a growing topic of interest within HCI. Yet, predominant societal views contribute to the positioning of individuals with dementia as deficient and declining, and treat technology as filling a gap left by impairment. We present the perspective of critical dementia as a way of reflecting on these views in the context of recent epistemological shifts in HCI. In addition to articulating how HCI can leverage the perspective of critical dementia, we present a case analysis of technology design in art therapy involving people with dementia aimed at challenging conventional narratives. This paper calls attention to and helps solidify an agenda for how the CHI community approaches dementia, design, and technology.

Leisure activities are a source of meaning and enjoyment for individuals across the lifespan. In this study, we conducted interviews with twenty-four older adults living in four different independent living communities. We present societal and ecological factors and motivations that influenced the way people participated in and decided what constitutes leisure activities. The goal of maintaining physical and cognitive health was often intertwined with motivations to engage in leisure activities. We discuss how this fits into the broader framework of successful aging and implications for technology design. We also provide an example of how findings from this study can be applied to a specific leisure activity: watching television.

Ageism is a pervasive, and often invisible, form of discrimination. Though it can affect people of all ages, older adults in particular face age-related stereotypes and bias in their everyday lives. In this paper, we describe the ways in which older bloggers articulate a collective narrative on ageism as it appears in their lives, develop a community with anti-ageist interests, and discuss strategies to navigate and change societal views and institutions. Bloggers criticize stereotypical notions that focus exclusively on losses that occur with age and advocate a view that takes into account the complexity and positive aspects of older adulthood. This paper contributes a unique case of online collective action among older adults while drawing on their online discourse as a way of understanding what ageism means for CSCW.

Cognitive impairment is sometimes viewed as a deficit limiting an individual's ability to participate fully in society. Art therapy, in contrast, is a context in which older adults with cognitive impairments (e.g., dementia, aphasia) are positioned as capable, competent, and engaged through the act of creating and sharing artwork. We draw on the concept of the "Third Hand," a practice in art therapy in which the therapist attunes to and enables the desires of the client during interaction. We use this concept to understand how to empower creative work and sharing among older adults with cognitive impairments. We introduce an interactive frame prototype to explore new opportunities for sharing and supporting interaction between these older adults and their therapist. We conclude with a discussion of what designing for the Third Hand means to HCI, including how this metaphor provides a model of empathy and empowerment in design for this population.

Robots are seen as a potential solution to the perceived needs of the aging population. Thus far, research has primarily focused on robotics for the functional and emotional support of older adults. Robotic pets have been developed primarily for the older adult who is perceived as lonely and isolated, and fears have consequently arisen that robots will replace human caregivers and deceive older adults into developing relationships with them. Missing is the perspective of older adults on the ethics of and potential uses for robotic companion pets. In this study, we conducted focus groups with 41 older adults. We discuss concepts raised by focus group participants such as giving into the fiction of the robotic pet, the social role of the robot, and the role of reciprocity in building a relationship with a robotic pet. We present resulting considerations for new directions for robotic pet design for older adults.

Smart devices are becoming increasingly commercially available. However, uptake of these devices has been slow and abandonment swift, which indicates that smart devices may not currently meet the needs of users. To advance an understanding of the ways users benefit from, are challenged by, and abandon smart devices, we asked a group of users to purchase smart sensing devices to advance themselves towards a personal, self-defined goal. We found that participants abandoned devices because they did not fit with the their conceptions of themselves, the data collected by devices were perceived to not be useful, and device maintenance became unmanageable. Participants used devices because they had developed routines and because devices were useful, satisfied curiosity, and held hope for potential benefit to them. We propose ways to reduce barriers, motivate use, and argue for envisioning an additional function of these devices for short-term interventions, in addition to standard long-term use.

Dementia is affecting an increasing number of people due to the global aging of the population. People with dementia living in memory care units (MCUs) often lack access to meaningful activities and social interactions. Information and communication technologies (ICT) have a tremendous potential to increase activity opportunities for people in MCUs. In two longitudinal studies, I used observations, interviews, and repeated quantitative measures to evaluate the use of a commercially available multi-functional technology system with people with dementia, staff, and family members. Next steps include data analysis and generating recommendations for system designers.

Stroke is the leading cause of long term disability among adults in industrialized nations. The partial paralysis that stroke patients often experience can make independent living difficult or impossible. Research suggests that many of these patients could recover by performing hundreds of daily repetitions of motions with their affected limbs. Yet, only 31% of patients perform the exercises recommended by their therapists. Home-based stroke rehabilitation games may help motivate stroke patients to perform the necessary exercises to recover. In this paper, we describe a formative study in which we designed and user tested stroke rehabilitation games with both stroke patients and therapists. We describe the lessons we learned about what makes games useful from a therapeutic point of view.