CAREER: Advancing Online Social Support for Older Adults with Disabilities

人机交互领域尚未解决为患有严重晚年残疾的老年人设计在线社交技术的复杂性，这是一个具有挑战性的问题，将随着未来几代人的重要性和规模而增长。社交计算已经改变了人们的交流方式，以至于被排除在在线体验之外可能意味着被排除在社会的关键方面之外，老年人尤其容易受到这种排斥的影响。虽然许多人变老时没有明显的残疾，但65岁及以上的美国人中有四分之一患有严重残疾。随着健康状况的下降，与自己的社会支持网络联系变得越来越重要，而晚年的健康状况和相关的残疾使保持联系变得困难。对于这一新出现的问题，一个有希望的解决方案是PI的“混合社会计算”概念，即将熟悉的交流界面与在线社交平台集成，同时利用支持网络来支持和保护在线用户。在这个项目中，PI将专注于老年人中普遍存在的两种情况：晚年视力障碍和晚年言语语言障碍。她将利用实地研究方法来了解这两个研究群体围绕在线互动的需求和挑战。然后，她将提炼和扩展在前期工作中开发的三个创新原型，并通过可用性和实地研究严格评估这些新工具的效果。如果没有针对患有严重晚年残疾的老年人的在线工具，我们无法研究在线互动对那些可能受益最大的人的影响，而且好处可能是巨大的。保持社交联系会影响晚年的身心健康，而保持网络联系与老年人抑郁和孤独的发生率较低有关。有证据表明，开发的系统如何支持在线互动，结果将影响促进晚年社会联系和福祉的战略。综合教育和外展计划促进具有当地社区影响的体验式学习，包括一项导师计划，该计划丰富了配套的本科课程，同时吸引社区残疾成员参与大学活动。PI将以开源形式发布开发的软件。这项研究的目标是开发一个概念和技术框架，用于支持和研究为患有严重晚年残疾的老年人提供在线社会支持。这项工作扩展了一项积极的研究计划，将有助于：在支持和保护用户的同时，将熟悉的通信接口与动态的在线系统连接起来的概念和技术框架；关于老年残疾背景下在线互动的需求和挑战的新知识，通过设计指南和分类为拟议的框架提供基础；三种创新的混合社会计算应用，这将进一步完善这一框架，并引入无障碍在线互动的新技术；以及两个未被研究的群体对在线交流的经验和理论理解，包括在线互动如何影响社会福祉的证据。综合教育计划包括开发一个以社区为基础的导师计划，该计划将延长设计、计算和残疾方面的新本科课程。拟议的框架具有潜在的变革性，因为它使新的在线互动形式成为可能，使人们能够用全新的人口统计数据来研究在线行为现象。社会计算的快速发展给许多学科带来了重大的研究挑战；这项研究将贡献新的知识、新的工具和新的框架，以应对跨越计算机科学、传播学和老年学的跨学科挑战。

The field of human-computer interaction has yet to address the complexities of designing online social technologies for older adults with severe late-life disability, a challenging problem that will grow in importance and scale with future generations. Social computing has changed how people communicate to such a degree that exclusion from online experiences can mean exclusion from critical aspects of society, and older adults are particularly vulnerable to such exclusion. While many people age without significant disability, one in four Americans who are 65 and older has a severe disability. Contact with one's social support network becomes increasingly important as health declines, whereas late-life health conditions and associated disability make staying connected difficult. A promising solution to this emerging problem is the PI's concept of "hybrid social computing" in which familiar communication interfaces are integrated with online social platforms while harnessing support networks to enable and protect users online. In this project the PI will focus on two pervasive conditions among older adults: late-life vision impairments and late-life speech-language impairments. She will utilize field research methods to understand the needs and challenges around online interaction for the two populations of study. She will then refine and extend three innovative prototypes developed in preliminary work, and rigorously evaluate the effects of these new tools through usability and field studies. Without online tools for older adults with severe late-life disabilities, we are unable to study the effects of online interaction for those who may benefit most, and the benefits may be vast. Staying socially connected can affect late-life physical and mental health, and staying connected online is associated with lower rates of depression and loneliness among older adults. With evidence of how the developed systems support online interaction, the results will impact strategies to promote late-life social connectedness and well-being. The integrated education and outreach plan fosters experiential learning with local community impact, including a mentorship program that enriches an accompanying undergraduate curriculum while drawing community members with disabilities into university activities. The PI will release the developed software as open source.The goal of this research is to develop a conceptual and technical framework for enabling and studying online social support for older adults with severe late-life disabilities. Extending an active program of research, this work will contribute: a conceptual and technical framework for connecting familiar communication interfaces with dynamic online systems while enabling and protecting users; new knowledge of the needs and challenges around online interaction in the context of late-life disability, providing the foundation for the proposed framework through design guidelines and a taxonomy; three innovative hybrid social computing applications, which will further refine this framework and introduce new techniques for accessible online interaction; and empirical and theoretical understandings of online communication for two understudied populations, including evidence of how online interaction affects social well-being. The integrated education plan involves developing a community-based mentorship program, which will extend a new undergraduate curriculum on design, computing, and disability. The proposed framework is potentially transformative in that it enables new forms of online interaction, making it possible to examine phenomena of online behavior with entirely new demographics. The rapid evolution of social computing presents major research challenges for many disciplines; this research will contribute new knowledge, new tools, and a new framework to address interdisciplinary challenges across computer science, communication studies, and gerontology.