Giovanni Andrea Parente’s research while affiliated with Sapienza University of Rome and other places

Aging population implies an increase in demand for health care services. This hopefully could be solved by e-health, even if some issues arise about technology acceptance and adoption among the elderly. In this article, the authors illustrate HomeCare4All project as a case study to apply Human Centered Design (HCD) process in the field of digital health services, aiming at designing trustworthy mobile applications for elderly people to book healthcare services at home.

Aging population implies an increase in demand for health care services. This hopefully could be solved by e-health, even if some issues arise about technology acceptance and adoption among the elderly. In this article, the authors illustrate HomeCare4All project as a case study to apply Human Centered Design (HCD) process in the field of digital health services, aiming at design trustworthy mobile applications for elderly people to book healthcare services at home. Starting from the results achieved from the early step of design, this paper describes the following steps of the creation of a design solution by identifying use cases, defining information architecture and prototyping an app mockup. The prototypes are then evaluated through a double usability test sessions with users, implementing an iterative design process. In conclusion authors advance suggestions for designing trustworthy mobile interactions for elderly people or people unaccustomed to technology, showing the importance of involving end users in the various stages of the design process.

For the elderly the use of public transportation services represents a central need, not only from an economic point of view, especially for the most disadvantages social classes, but also from a social perspective, since it creates social relations. However the elderly have several needs in their travel experience, deriving mainly from their psychophysical problems. In this scenario, to improve the travel experience of the elderly it is necessary to adopt an inclusive design approach, in which the different categories of people are considered as a resource for a more accommodating design. In this paper, the authors present a research on the design of multi-modal transport services with a focus on the interactions of the elderly with the digital services provided by the transport companies. Starting from the analysis of academic studies in this specific field, the authors present the results of an empirical survey. It has been conducted with the aim to identify the elderly needs, to define the elements that can improve their travel experience and to define those characteristics that allow to create more usable, accessible and sustainable interactive services. From this survey different types of needs emerge. They can be considered as requirements and consequent system features for potential digital services based on the elderly needs.

Digital technologies integrated in the physical spaces enable new practices that open new possible interactions between people and the urban public spaces. These emerging hybrid spaces might have a crucial role in the processes aiming at having a more satisfying urban life. Mobility is a field strongly impacted by hybrid urban spaces and this should be considered in order to improve the quality of life in cities. In this paper the authors, starting from the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS), show as game elements applied in different moments of the travel experience and disseminated in different parts of these hybrid spaces can enhance the interaction between people and mobility services. Finally the outcome of a co-design session about a game solution aiming at improving the people experience with the mobility services is presented as an example of this assumption.

The evolution of mobility sector towards a multimodal and multi-service approach enables new possibilities of interaction for travellers. At once it creates a complex ecosystem where the final users are one of the main key components for the effectiveness and the success of the deployed mobility strategies and solutions. It implies that, both for academic and commercial purposes, a remarkable attention should be put on the design approaches focusing on human aspects in interactive systems. Moreover different methods aiming at enhancing the user experience should be exploited, in order to trigger desirable and worthy innovations. So in this paper we focus on gamification for improving the quality of interaction with the mobility services. In effect, mobility represents a more and more promising domain for the application of playful solutions, although in this field it is nowadays employed mostly for incentivizing smart and sustainable behaviours, also in combination with crowdsourcing. However we can suppose a wider use of this approach in the mobility services, e.g. to improve the overall traveller experience and to increase an active collaboration among the stakeholders. In detail, in this paper we will discuss three main variables to identify which possibilities can emerge in future mobility services by applying a gamification approach: the different stages of a journey, for better knowing the contexts of action and the needs of people potentially interested in; the devices to be exploited, for better accomplishing gamification purposes; the game components, for better understanding how they contribute to fulfill the traveller objectives.

In discussing the city suitability to people’s needs, generally a special attention has been given to people with special needs, e.g. the elderly. In this sense, most of the research about accessible cities has focused on the architectural design of public spaces, aiming at ensuring the access to urban places through the removal of architectural barriers. However, as technologies have been diffusing in many different city services, it also should be given attention to the constraints derived from this unavoidable change affecting the elderly life. The focus is on the potential of the technologies for improving the elderly city experience. In this paper the authors, starting from the principles of the transgenerational design, focus on how the technologies applied to the public transportation services could improve citizen experience and promote really inclusive mobility services.