Investigation of older people's needs at home to inspire inclusive home design with smart products and services

As the world population is ageing, many researchers have explored and contributed to improving older people's quality of life from diverse perspectives. The living room has been identified as one of the most frequently used spaces at home. It is multi-functional: used for reading, tea/coffee, TV and entertainment, meeting with friends, meals, and even sleeping. This project aims to investigate the experiences of older people with their living room at home to identify risks and challenges they face in their day-to-day life and indicate the reasons behind it. An 9-week ethnographic user study approach was employed to explore older people's natural behavior with multiple activities in their living room through video-based observation, in-depth interview, and cultural probes with 11 households. Qualitative content analysis was applied to analyze the collected data to identify key factors that have an impact on older people's living experience in their living room. Finally, all findings from this project help the author to develop design insights for improving living room space design, furniture and furniture arrangement, and atmospheres design to improve older people's standard of living in the UK.