A user-centered ethical assessment of welfare technology for elderlyShow others and affiliations
2018 (English)In: Lect. Notes Comput. Sci., 2018, p. 59-73Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Welfare technology (WT) is often developed with a technical perspective, and little consideration is taken regarding the involvement of important ethical considerations and different values that come up during the development and implementation of WT. Safety, security and privacy are significant, as well as the usability and overall benefit of the tool, but to date assessments often lack a holistic picture of the WT as seen by the users. This paper suggests a user-centered ethical assessment (UCEA) framework for WT to be able to evaluate ethical consequences as a part of the user-centered aspects. Building on established methodologies from research on ethical considerations, as well as the research domain of human-computer interaction, this assessment framework joins knowledge of ethical consequences with aspects affecting the “digitalization with the individual in the center”, e.g. privacy, safety, well-being, dignity, empowerment and usability. The framework was applied during development of an interface for providing symptom information to Parkinson patients. The results showed that the UCEA framework directs the attention to values emphasized by the patients. Thus, functionality of the system was evaluated in the light of values and expected results of the patients, thereby facilitating follow-up of a user-centered assessment. The framework may be further developed and tested, but in this study it served as a working tool for assessing ethical consequences of WT as a part of user-centered aspects.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. p. 59-73
Keywords [en]
Ambient-assisted living, Assessment, Assistive technology, Elderly, Ethical evaluation, Framework, Health-enabling technology, User-centered, Welfare technology, Assisted living, Computer privacy, Human computer interaction, Ambient assisted living, Enabling technologies, Philosophical aspects
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-34471DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-92037-5_6Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85050586674ISBN: 9783319920368 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-34471DiVA, id: diva2:1238171
Conference
International Conference on Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population ITAP 2018: Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Applications in Health, Assistance, and Entertainment pp 59-73
2018-08-132018-08-132023-05-25Bibliographically approved