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老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，其重要性和规模将随着后代的增长而增长。社会计算已经极大地改变了人们的交流方式，排斥在线体验意味着排斥社会的重要方面，老年人尤其容易受到这种排斥。虽然许多人没有严重残疾，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，与社会支持网络的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。对于这个新出现的问题，PI的“混合社会计算”概念是一个很有希望的解决方案，在这个概念中，熟悉的通信接口与在线社交平台集成在一起，同时利用支持网络来启用和保护在线用户。在这个项目中，PI将重点关注老年人中两种普遍存在的疾病：晚年视力障碍和晚年语言障碍。她将利用实地研究方法来了解两类研究人群在在线互动方面的需求和挑战。然后，她将完善和扩展在初步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。如果没有针对有严重晚年残疾的老年人的在线工具，我们就无法研究在线互动对那些可能受益最多的人的影响，而这些好处可能是巨大的。保持社交联系会影响晚年的身心健康，而在老年人中，保持网络联系与抑郁和孤独的发生率较低有关。有证据表明，发达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。综合教育和推广计划促进了对当地社区产生影响的体验式学习，其中包括一项指导计划，该计划丰富了附带的本科课程，同时吸引社区残疾成员参加大学活动。PI将把开发的软件作为开源发布。本研究的目的是开发一个概念和技术框架，以实现和研究对患有严重晚年残疾的老年人的在线社会支持。扩展积极的研究计划，这项工作将有助于：概念和技术框架连接熟悉的通信接口与动态在线系统，同时使和保护用户；对老年残疾背景下在线互动需求和挑战的新认识，通过设计指南和分类为提出的框架提供基础；三个创新的混合社会计算应用程序，将进一步完善这一框架，并引入新的技术，以方便网上互动；以及对两个未被充分研究的人群的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。综合教育计划包括发展一个以社区为基础的指导计划，该计划将扩展设计、计算机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，使得用全新的人口统计数据来研究在线行为现象成为可能。社会计算的快速发展为许多学科提出了重大的研究挑战；这项研究将为解决计算机科学、传播学和老年学的跨学科挑战提供新的知识、新的工具和新的框架。

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.