Exploring Need in Narratives: HumanComputer Interaction in the Design of a Home Automation System for the Elderly People

摘要

The research paper aims to examine possibilities of establishing a framework for generating insights pertaining to requirements from narratives of users, contradictory to the prevalent establishment of initiating from a need statement. The study shapes open-ended discussions of phenomenological probes as a research tool to structure a negotiated i nderstanding of requisites. The elderly and their participatory engagement with the surroundings were established as a research space for the study, and their narratives were sequentially converted into partially analyzed data, initial and focused codes to comprehend understandings in emerging themes. The concluded themes and their categories illustrated a need of exploration in interaction platforms available to elderly. Emerged themes also facilitated in understanding the shortcomings of contemporary techniques of human-computer interaction. Design of a home automation system is proposed as an example to implement the suggested framework in the context of human-centered design. Validation of the framework for a wider spectrum of design transactions is a subject of future study.