I spy with my little eye: Improving user involvement in elderly care facility design through virtual reality

Mahamadu, Abdul-Majeed; Okeke, Udonna; Prabhakaran, Abhinesh; Booth, Colin A.; Olomolaiye, Paul

Abstract

Recent studies have established that an ageing population is the most prevalent problem for healthcare provision. Thus, the design of care facilities must ensure better support for the needs of the elderly population. One of the areas of innovation in this field is participatory design where views of end-users are sought during the design process. However, the current approaches to participatory design in the built environment are challenging because of reliance on single interface methods based on 2D and 3D visualisation or communication of design information. In this study, a prototype virtual reality (VR) application was developed and experimented with elderly care experts (n = 7) to ascertain the usefulness of the methodology for capturing elderly user requirements during building design specifically for elderly care scenarios. Findings indicate that VR can improve design communications and user engagement in the process; however, there remain safety issues that hamper the full deployment of a fully immersive VR application for elderly participants

• Online Publication Date: Nov 14, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Mar 25, 2022
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 385-394
• Book Title: Climate Emergency – Managing, Building , and Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals.
• ISBN: 9783030794491
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79450-7_29
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9233918
• Additional Information: First Online: 14 November 2021