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

Mahamadu, Abdul

Abstract

Recent studies have established that an ageing population is currently the most prevalent problem in healthcare provision as a result of an increasing number of people living with age-related chronic conditions such as dementia and stroke. More recently, this has been exacerbated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which has exposed elderly people to more risks. One of the ways of improving the quality of life of aged patients is to design care facilities that meet their care and personal user needs. One area of innovation is participatory design where stakeholder views are sought in the design process in order to enhance the patient experience when the facilities are built. However, the current approaches to participatory design are challenging because of reliance on single interface methods based on 2D and 3D visualization and communication of design information. This study aimed to enhance elderly user participation in healthcare facility design through interactive Virtual Reality (VR). A novel methodology for incorporating fully-immersive and interactive VR into the workflow of care facility design is proposed highlighting potential challenges and safety considerations. A prototype VR application was developed and used in an experiment involving care experts and designers (n=7) to ascertain the usefulness of the methodology for capturing user requirements during building design specifically for elderly care scenarios. Findings indicate that VR improves 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. This includes loneliness in virtual space, potential dizziness when navigating as well as usability challenges associated with disability and loss of dexterity which is often more prevalent among the elderly. Features such as teleportation while stationary were found as very useful in offering a safer approach to navigation in VR for elderly users. Also, for future developments, it is proposed that semi-immersive and augmented reality approaches are tested in order to ascertain their relative advantage when compared to fully immersive solutions.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (Published)
• Conference Name: SEEDS 2020
• Start Date: Sep 2, 2020
• End Date: Sep 3, 2020
• Deposit Date: Sep 30, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 7, 2020
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/6732507