Much of the developed world is experiencing an aging population. This requires society to adapt to take care of a growing elderly population and improve their quality of life. Today, mobile systems are available that makes it possible to monitor and improve health (m-health). Even though these systems could be immensely helpful for the elderly population, this has not been the primary demographic for the current m-health systems. This case study aimed at examining how persuasive technology (technology for changing behavior and/or attitude) can be used to promote usage of m-health applications by the elderly. For this purpose, a theoretical framework for supporting m-health systems is proposed. This framework consist of persuasive technology (for motivation and support for fulfillment of human needs), knowledge of elderly issues in interacting with mobile interfaces, smartphone usability heuristics and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle (to support goalsetting and incremental progress). To determine how persuasive technology can be used to motivate elderly and find effective strategies for this purpose, the case study examined health behavior, motivations for healthy behavior, attitude to health, general goal setting behavior, needs, preferences, technological experience and self-efficacy, as well as usage of m-health systems using qualitative and participatory methods. Methods used included semi-structured interviews, future workshop, revolutionary rapid prototyping and usability evaluation. The findings of the interviews and the future workshop suggested the primary motivation for healthy behavior was derived from social aspects. Thus, the most effective persuasive strategies for the elderly likely target their need for social belonging and socialization. Based on the findings, an interactive prototype was developed. The prototype proposed an m-health application with self-monitoring that implemented an elderly community around healthy behavior, with opportunities to earn digital rewards and challenge other users to competition. The interactive prototype was then used in a usability evaluation to gauge its usability by the elderly and revised in higher fidelity according to their feedback.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:07:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LEME_Ricardo_2015.pdf: 7202991 bytes, checksum: e01ea6e52b9be5ca7ceca1056abb2bcc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-01-23 / The use of small mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has been growing in various public in Brazil. Even though many devices have features such as touch, gestures, voice, many applications do not adopt such resources to support different ways of interaction. Among the various audiences that have been using the mobile devices in Brazil, it can highlight the elderly person. To understand the needs of elderly audience is important not only observe their actions as well as brings them to inside of the process of development. User Centered Design (UCD) is a methodology that uses models, methods and processes for software design aiming to fulfill the user needs, composed by the steps of research, development and evaluation. Based on the UCD principals, this work presents an approach to support the design of interaction which besides being to the user, is also developed with the elderly user adding to the UCD cycle the techniques of participatory design and of personas. The application developed by the approach allows the elderly users to use the multimodal interaction according to their preferences and to the context of use. The methodology of this work was composed by three steps. First, a systematic review gave the support to the fundamentals and to the delimitation of the work scope. After that, the approach was designed based on UCD method including the participatory aspects. The proposal verification was conducted following the approach phases with the participation of a total of 279 elderly users. The results show that the elderly user, as a active member of the development process, aiding on the identification of real interaction aspects of the application. / O uso de dispositivos móveis, como smartphones e tablets vem crescendo junto a vários públicos no Brasil. Mesmo que muitos dispositivos possuam características tais como toque, gestos, voz, muitas aplicações não adotam tais recursos para apoiar diferentes formas de interação. Entre os diversos públicos que utilizam os dispositivos móveis no Brasil, pode-se destacar o usuário da terceira idade. Para entender as necessidades deste público, é importante não somente observar as suas ações, mas trazê-los para o processo de desenvolvimento. O Design Centrado no Usuário (UCD) é uma metodologia que utiliza modelos, métodos e processos de design de software com o objetivo para atender as necessidades do usuário, composto pelas etapas de pesquisa, desenvolvimento e avaliação. Com base nos princípios da UCD, este trabalho apresenta uma abordagem para apoiar o projeto de interação que além de ser para o usuário, também é desenvolvido com o usuário da terceira idade somando-se ao ciclo da UCD as técnicas de design participativo e de personas. A aplicação desenvolvida pela abordagem permite que os usuários idosos utilizem a interação multimodal de acordo com as suas preferências e para o contexto de utilização. A metodologia deste trabalho foi composta por três etapas. Em primeiro lugar, uma revisão sistemática deu o apoio para os fundamentos e para a delimitação do âmbito de trabalho. Depois disso, a abordagem foi concebida com base no método da UCD incluindo os aspectos de participação. A abordagem proposta foi realizada seguindo as fases de aproximação com a participação de um total de 279 usuários idosos. Os resultados mostram que o usuário idoso, como um membro ativo do processo de desenvolvimento, pode auxiliar na identificação de aspectos reais de interação da aplicação.