CommunityNet

This project was a design case study of a community care network called CommunityNet. The aim was to encourage community care in order to prolong independent living. Design challenges include avoiding stigmatization of seniors, lowering the barrier to ask for support and distributing the care activities within a large network. The main goal of the concept is to enable the next generation elderly to activate and maintain a local network of potential caregivers. The barrier to ask for support should be removed by introducing a peer-to-peer solution in an early stage, when seniors are still willing to adopt a new technology. The concept consists of a touchscreen interface using the Internet to enable the user to communicate with family, friends, neighbors and other potential caregivers. The main functionality is the bidirectional care-network; sending and receiving informal requests. These can be sent to those contacts the user wishes to invite. Since the requests are sent to as many contacts as possible, users are free to decide when and what they respond. To enable quick responses and keep overview, a request can only be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The user can select whom the request is sent to; by default all contacts are selected to stimulate users to ask as many contacts as possible for the request.

Bas Stroomer
M. H. Vastenburg, D. V. Keyson
master thesis, August 2010