Calm Sensing Design: A Contextual Notification Mechanism to Support Older User‘s Health Awareness

Abstract

As the population of older adults in society rises, the importance of ubiquitous technology to assist health management and healthcare is growing with the demographic shift. Smart devices with multiple sensors in everyday life have been the common solution proposed by related projects to fulfil the needs of older users. However, ubiquitous computing can also change the paradigm in which notifications are delivered to users. Notification mechanisms are a key factor in interaction design to provide older adults health awareness. Since older users are both active and sensitive to health problems, good awareness mechanisms should provide seamlessly interactions with technology into their everyday routines. Inspired by influential early visions on ubiquitous computing, we conduct an experimental research within a smart cushion project that reminded older adults‘ sedentary lifestyle in two everyday scenarios through different notification modalities. Based on the experimental results, we introduce a contextual notification mechanism called Calm Sensing. Calm Sensing Design identifies the effectiveness and disruptiveness of notification modalities at varied channels of human sensory, these being heat, odour, sound, vibration and message. we conclude that good notification mechanism should have the ability to switch among older adults‘ multi-sensory for different their daily activities. We suggest that heat and odour have potential to be alternatives instead of familiar sound and vibration to give just-in-time information and avoiding disruptiveness.