Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
skip to main content
research-article

Immersive Virtual Reality for Older Adults: Empirically Grounded Design Guidelines

Published: 19 August 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of research on immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies for older adults, comprehensive guidelines on designing immersive and engaging VR for older adults remain sparse. Therefore, we first compounded 67 guidelines based on published literature. Next, to empirically ground these design recommendations, we provided 37 older adults of diverse ages, education levels, and cognitive abilities with a first VR experience. Analyzing interviews with the 37 older adults via the Laddering method, we found that they generally reported positive experiences with their first VR exposure. With these deepened insights, we reflect on, nuance, and contextualize existing design guidelines, and formulate points to bear in mind when designing accessible and engaging VR experiences for older persons.

References

[1]
S. Baker, J. Waycott, R. Carrasco, T. Hoang, and F. Vetere. 2019a. Exploring the design of social VR experiences with older adults. In Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM, 303–315. https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.332
[2]
S. Baker, J. Waycott, E. Robertson, R. Carrasco, B. B. Neves, R. Hampson, and F. Vetere. 2019b. Evaluating the use of interactive virtual reality technology with older adults living in residential aged care. Information Processing & Management 57, 3 (2019b), 102105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.102105
[3]
S. Baker, J. Waycott, F. Vetere, and T. Hoang. 2019c. The technology explorers: Partnering with older adults to engage with virtual reality and virtual avatars. In Ageing and Digital Technology (pp. 231–246). Springer.
[4]
N. H. Basri, N. L. M. Noor, W. A. W. Adnan, F. M. Saman, and A. H. A. Baharin. 2016. Conceptualizing and understanding user experience. In 4th International Conference on User Science and Engineering (i-USEr'16). IEEE, 81–84. https://doi.org/10.1109/IUSER.2016.7857938
[5]
W.-L. Bickerton, M. J. Riddoch, D. Samson, A. B. Balani, B. Mistry, and G. W. Humphreys. 2012. Systematic assessment of apraxia and functional predictions from the birmingham cognitive screen. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 83, 5 (2012), 513–521. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2011-300968
[6]
J. R. Bruun-Pedersen, S. Serafin, and L. B. Kofoed. 2016a. Restorative virtual environment design for augmenting nursing home rehabilitation. Journal For Virtual Worlds Research 9, 3 (2016a). https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v9i3.7224
[7]
J. R. Bruun-Pedersen, S. Serafin, J. Maculewicz, and L. B. Kofoed. 2016b. Designing recreational virtual environments for older adult nursing home residents: How nature and content matter for improving augmented exercise experiences. Proceedings of the Audio Mostly 2016. ACM, 222–228. https://doi.org/10.1145/2986416.2986455
[8]
P. Cipresso, I. A. C. Giglioli, M. A. Raya, and G. Riva. 2018. The past, present, and future of virtual and augmented reality research: A network and cluster analysis of the literature. Frontiers in Psychology 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02086
[9]
G. Cockton. 2008. Designing worth—Connecting preferred means to desired ends. Interactions 15, 4 (2008), 54–57. https://doi.org/10.1145/1374489.1374502
[10]
J. B. Cohen and L. Warlop. 2001. A motivational perspective on means-end chains. In Understanding Consumer Decision Making: The means-end approach to Marketing and Advertising Strategy. Lawrence Elbaum Associates, 389--412.
[11]
S. J. Czaja, P. Gregor, and V. L. Hanson. 2009. Introduction to the special issue on aging and information technology. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 2, 1 (2009), 1:1–1:4. https://doi.org/10.1145/1525840.1525841
[12]
A. W. de Vries, J. H. van Dieën, V. van den Abeele, and S. M. P. Verschueren. 2018. Understanding motivations and player experiences of older adults in virtual reality training. Games for Health Journal 7, 6 (2018), 369–376. https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2018.0008
[13]
M. H. Depledge, R. J. Stone, and W. J. Bird. 2011. Can natural and virtual environments be used to promote improved human health and wellbeing? Environmental Science & Technology 45, 11 (2011), 4660–4665. https://doi.org/10.1021/es103907m
[14]
J. Durick, T. Robertson, M. Brereton, F. Vetere, and B. Nansen. 2013. Dispelling ageing myths in technology design. In Proceedings of the 25th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference: Augmentation, Application, Innovation, Collaboration. Association for Computing Machinery, 467–476. https://doi.org/10.1145/2541016.2541040
[15]
M. Eisapour, S. Cao, and J. Boger. 2018a. Game design for users with constraint: Exergame for older adults with cognitive impairment. In 31st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology Adjunct Proceedings. ACM, 128–130. https://doi.org/10.1145/3266037.3266124
[16]
M. Eisapour, S. Cao, L. Domenicucci, and J. Boger. 2018b. Participatory design of a virtual reality exercise for people with mild cognitive impairment. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, CS15:1–CS15:9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3174362
[17]
D. Flynn, P. van Schaik, T. Blackman, C. Femcott, B. Hobbs, and C. Calderon. 2003. Developing a virtual reality–based methodology for people with dementia: A feasibility study. CyberPsychology & Behavior 6, 6 (2003), 591–611. https://doi.org/10.1089/109493103322725379
[18]
J. L. Fozard and H.-W. Wahl. 2012. Age and cohort effects in gerontechnology: A reconsideration. Gerontechnology 11, 1 (2012), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.4017/gt.2012.11.01.003.00
[19]
D. Freeman, S. Reeve, A. Robinson, A. Ehlers, D. Clark, B. Spanlang, and M. Slater. 2017. Virtual reality in the assessment, understanding, and treatment of mental health disorders. Psychological Medicine 47, 14 (2017), 2393–2400.
[20]
L. Garcia, A. Kartolo, and E. Methot-Curtis. 2012. A discussion of the use of virtual reality in dementia. Virtual Reality in Psychological, Medical and Pedagogical Applications. https://doi.org/10.5772/46412
[21]
R. I. García-Betances, M. T. Arredondo Waldmeyer, G. Fico, and M. F. Cabrera-Umpiérrez. 2015. A succinct overview of virtual reality technology use in Alzheimer's disease. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 7 (2015), 80.
[22]
K. Gerling, M. Ray, V. V. Abeele, and A. B. Evans. 2020. Critical reflections on technology to support physical activity among older adults: An exploration of leading HCI venues. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 13, 1 (2020), 1:1–1:23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3374660
[23]
J. Gutman. 1982. A means-end chain model based on consumer categorization processes. Journal of Marketing 46, 2 (1982), 60–72.
[24]
M. Hassenzahl. 2003. The thing and I: Understanding the relationship between user and product. In Funology (pp. 31–42). Springer.
[25]
M. Hassenzahl. 2008. User experience (UX): Towards an experiential perspective on product quality. In Proceedings of the 20th Conference on l'Interaction Homme-Machine. 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/1512714.1512717
[26]
N. Hauk, J. Hüffmeier, and S. Krumm. 2018. Ready to be a silver surfer? A meta-analysis on the relationship between chronological age and technology acceptance. Computers in Human Behavior 84 (2018), 304–319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.01.020
[27]
K. Hicks, K. Gerling, G. Richardson, T. Pike, O. Burman, and P. Dickinson. 2019. Understanding the effects of gamification and juiciness on players. In IEEE Conference on Games, London, UK. IEEE. https://lirias.kuleuven.be/2814756.
[28]
J. Hodge, M. Balaam, S. Hastings, and K. Morrissey. 2018. Exploring the design of tailored virtual reality experiences for people with dementia. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 514:1–514:13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174088
[29]
M. Hofmann, D. Kasnitz, J. Mankoff, and C. L. Bennett. 2020. Living disability theory: Reflections on access, research, and design. In 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. ACM. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3416996
[30]
H. Huygelier. 2020. Compilation of interactions with IVR application Perfect from nDreams. figshare. https://figshare.com/articles/media/IVR_application_Perfect/13353569.
[31]
H. Huygelier, B. Schraepen, R. Van Ee, V. Vanden Abeele, and C. Gillebert. 2019. Acceptance of immersive head-mounted virtual reality in older adults. Scientific Reports 9, 4519 (2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41200-6.
[32]
W. IJsselsteijn, H. H. Nap, Y. A. W. de Kort, and K. Poels. 2007. Digital game design for elderly users. In Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Future Play. ACM. 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/1328202.1328206
[33]
K. Isbister and F. Mueller. 2015. Guidelines for the design of movement-based games and their relevance to HCI. Human–Computer Interaction 30, 3–4 (2015), 366–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.996647
[34]
B. Knowles and V. L. Hanson. 2018. Older adults’ deployment of ‘Distrust.’ ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 25, 4 (2018), 21:1–21:25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196490
[35]
B. Knowles, V. L. Hanson, Y. Rogers, A. M. Piper, J. Waycott, and N. Davies. 2019. HCI and aging: Beyond accessibility. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3299025
[36]
D. Korsgaard, T. Bjørner, P. K. Sørensen, and J. R. Bruun-Pedersen. 2019. Older adults eating together in a virtual living room: Opportunities and limitations of eating in augmented virtuality. In Proceedings of the 31st European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics. ACM, 168–176. https://doi.org/10.1145/3335082.3335093
[37]
N. C. Lecavalier, É. Ouellet, B. Boller, and S. Belleville. 2018. Use of immersive virtual reality to assess episodic memory: A validation study in older adults. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 30, 3 (2018), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2018.1477684
[38]
S. Liddicoat and C. Newton. 2019. Older adults as Co-researchers for built environments: Virtual reality as a means of engagement. In B. B. Neves & F. Vetere (Eds.), Ageing and Digital Technology: Designing and Evaluating Emerging Technologies for Older Adults (pp. 151–169). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3693-5_10
[39]
M. Lombardand and T. Ditton. 1997. At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 3, 2 (1997), 0–0. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00072.x
[40]
S. A. McGlynn and W. A. Rogers. 2017. Design recommendations to enhance virtual reality presence for older adults. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Vol. 61. SAGE Publications Sage CA, Los Angeles, CA, 2077–2081.
[41]
J. I. Montana, M. Matamala-Gomez, M. Maisto, P. A. Mavrodiev, C. M. Cavalera, B. Diana, F. Mantovani, and O. Realdon. 2020. The benefits of emotion regulation interventions in virtual reality for the improvement of wellbeing in adults and older adults: A systematic review. Journal of Clinical Medicine 9, 2 (2020), 500. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9020500
[42]
Z. S. Nasreddine, N. A. Phillips, V. Bédirian, S. Charbonneau, V. Whitehead, I. Collin, J. L. Cummings, and H. Chertkow. 2005. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA: A brief screening tool for mild cognitive impairment. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 53, 4 (2005), 695–699. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53221.x
[43]
nDreams. 2016. Perfect (Version 1) [Computer software]. http://www.ndreams.com/titles/perfectvr.
[44]
S. G. Neri, J. R. Cardoso, L. Cruz, R. M. Lima, R. J. de Oliveira, M. D. Iversen, and R. L. Carregaro. 2017. Do virtual reality games improve mobility skills and balance measurements in community-dwelling older adults? Systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Rehabilitation 31, 10 (2017), 1292–1304. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215517694677
[45]
J. Nielsen. 2005. Accessibility Is Not Enough. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved July 13, 2021 from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/accessibility-is-not-enough/.
[46]
L. Reis, E. Duarte, and F. Rebelo. 2013. Main usability issues in using virtual environments for older population warning studies. In A. Marcus (Ed.), Design, User Experience, and Usability. User Experience in Novel Technological Environments (pp. 189–198). Springer, Berlin.
[47]
T. J. Reynolds and J. Gutman. 1988. Laddering theory, method, analysis, and interpretation. Journal of Advertising Research 28, 1 (1988), 11–31.
[48]
A. R. Roberts, B. D. Schutter, K. Franks, and M. E. Radina. 2019. Older adults’ experiences with audiovisual virtual reality: Perceived usefulness and other factors influencing technology acceptance. Clinical Gerontologist 42, 1 (2019), 27-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2018.1442380
[49]
J. R. Rosa, S. Dos, and N. M. C. Valentim. 2020. Accessibility, usability and user experience design for visually impaired people: A systematic mapping study. In Proceedings of the 19th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3424953.3426626
[50]
S. Sarcar, C. Munteanu, J. Jokinen, A. Oulasvirta, N. Charness, M. Dunlop, and X. Ren. 2018. Designing interactions for the ageing populations. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3170607
[51]
M. J. Schuemie, P. Van Der Straaten, M. Krijn, and C. A. Van Der Mast. 2001. Research on presence in virtual reality: A survey. CyberPsychology & Behavior 4, 2 (2001), 183–201.
[52]
A. Sears and V. L. Hanson. 2012. Representing users in accessibility research. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 4, 2 (2012), 7:1–7:6. https://doi.org/10.1145/2141943.2141945
[53]
P. Siriaraya and C. S. Ang. 2014. Recreating living experiences from past memories through virtual worlds for people with dementia. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 3977–3986. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557035
[54]
M. Slater. 2009. Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, 1535 (2009), 3549–3557.
[55]
M. Slater and S. Wilbur. 1997. A framework for immersive virtual environments (FIVE): Speculations on the role of presence in virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 6, 6 (1997), 603–616. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres.1997.6.6.603
[56]
N. Thapa, H. J. Park, J.-G. Yang, H. Son, M. Jang, J. Lee, S. W. Kang, K. W. Park, and H. Park. 2020. The effect of a virtual reality-based intervention program on cognition in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: A randomized control trial. Journal of Clinical Medicine 9, 5 (2020), 1283. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9051283
[57]
G. Tieri, G. Morone, S. Paolucci, and M. Iosa. 2018. Virtual reality in cognitive and motor rehabilitation: Facts, fiction and fallacies. Expert Review of Medical Devices 15, 2 (2018), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/17434440.2018.1425613
[58]
P. Van Schaik, A. Martyr, T. Blackman, and J. Robinson. 2008. Involving persons with dementia in the evaluation of outdoor environments. Cyberpsychology & Behavior: The Impact of the Internet, Multimedia and Virtual Reality on Behavior and Society 11, 4 (2008), 415–424. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.0105
[59]
V. Vanden Abeele, E. Hauters, and B. Zaman. 2012. Increasing the reliability and validity of quantitative laddering data with ladderUX. In Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, 2057--2062.
[60]
V. Vanden Abeele and B. Zaman. 2009. Laddering the user experience! In User Experience Methods, Interact 2009. Uppsala, Sweden. http://wiki.research.nokia.com/images/8/84/Abeele_LadderingUX.pdf.
[61]
J. Vines, G. Pritchard, P. Wright, P. Olivier, and K. Brittain. 2015. An age-old problem: Examining the discourses of ageing in HCI and strategies for future research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions 22, 1 (2015), 2:1–2:27. https://doi.org/10.1145/2696867
[62]
J. Waycott, G. Wadley, S. Baker, H. S. Ferdous, T. Hoang, K. Gerling, C. J. Headleand, and A. L. Simeone. 2018. Manipulating reality? Designing and deploying virtual reality in sensitive settings. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM, 411–414. https://doi.org/10.1145/3197391.3197401
[63]
B. Zaman and V. V. Abeele. 2010. Laddering with young children in User eXperience evaluations: Theoretical groundings and a practical case. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children. Association for Computing Machinery, 156–165. https://doi.org/10.1145/1810543.1810561

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Cybersickness in Virtual Reality: The Role of Individual Differences, Its Effects on Cognitive Functions and Motor Skills, and Intensity Differences during and after ImmersionVirtual Worlds10.3390/virtualworlds30100043:1(62-93)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2024
  • (2024)Exploring the Landscape of Standards and Guidelines in AgeTech Design and Development: Scoping Review and Thematic AnalysisJMIR Aging10.2196/581967(e58196)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Social VR Activities Should Support Ongoing Conversation - Comparing Older and Young Adults Desires and RequirementsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction10.1145/3677386.3682089(1-13)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing
ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing  Volume 14, Issue 3
September 2021
199 pages
ISSN:1936-7228
EISSN:1936-7236
DOI:10.1145/3477232
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 19 August 2021
Accepted: 01 June 2021
Revised: 01 April 2021
Received: 01 August 2020
Published in TACCESS Volume 14, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. VR
  2. Virtual reality
  3. design guidelines
  4. laddering
  5. older adults

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed

Funding Sources

  • Flemish Fund for Scientific Research - FWO
  • Flemish Fund for Scientific Research - FWO Odysseuss Grant
  • Flemish Fund for Scientific Research - FWO

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)430
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)41
Reflects downloads up to 27 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Cybersickness in Virtual Reality: The Role of Individual Differences, Its Effects on Cognitive Functions and Motor Skills, and Intensity Differences during and after ImmersionVirtual Worlds10.3390/virtualworlds30100043:1(62-93)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2024
  • (2024)Exploring the Landscape of Standards and Guidelines in AgeTech Design and Development: Scoping Review and Thematic AnalysisJMIR Aging10.2196/581967(e58196)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Social VR Activities Should Support Ongoing Conversation - Comparing Older and Young Adults Desires and RequirementsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction10.1145/3677386.3682089(1-13)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • (2024)From Skepticism to Acceptance: On the Dynamics of Elderly Engagement with Mixed RealityProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202410.1145/3670653.3670666(67-82)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2024
  • (2024)Accessibility Feature Implementation Within Free VR ExperiencesExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650935(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)LightSword: A Customized Virtual Reality Exergame for Long-Term Cognitive Inhibition Training in Older AdultsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642187(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Inclusion in Virtual Reality Technology: A Scoping ReviewInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2392967(1-21)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2024
  • (2024)A Multi-User Virtual Reality Social Connecting Space for People Living with Dementia and Their Support Persons: A Participatory Action Research StudyInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2348838(1-19)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
  • (2024)Introducing virtual reality to older adults: A qualitative analysis of a co-design innovation with care staffArchives of Gerontology and Geriatrics10.1016/j.archger.2024.105505125(105505)Online publication date: Oct-2024
  • (2024)Intersecting realms: a cross-disciplinary examination of VR quality of experience researchVirtual Reality10.1007/s10055-024-01031-x28:3Online publication date: 10-Jul-2024
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media