Designing artificial companionship through explorative research in order to prevent loneliness in the future elderly of the baby boom generation

Designing artificial companionship through explorative research in order to prevent loneliness in the future elderly of the baby boom generation

Papadopoulou, A.E.

Paauwe, R.A. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Design for Interaction

2014-08-22

Buddy, is the result of an explorative research-through-design approach in the field of artificial companions. The main goal of the project was to create a prevention tool for alleviating feelings of loneliness. In order for this to happen the selected target group is people that are not old, yet, but are in transition at the moment, the baby boomers. The most appropriate moment to intervene is the retirement, as it was investigated to be one of the crucial moments in one's life that might lead to a future lonely senior. Since there are not many current robots that deal with that issue, the research had several steps of explorative prototypes and was build using user's insights and feedback. The proposed design is an embodied companion that provides seniors a structured way to segment their long-term goals into short-term ones by motivating them throughout the way, as a buddy would do, via SMS communication. Evaluation of the concept revealed that the existence of an other being, even an artificial one, has an effect in the companionship people feel when executing their tasks, keeping them more motivated.

interaction
social companions
robots
artificial companions
explorative design
prototyping

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d5336fda-3b91-40a0-81c0-8931f50759a6

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Papadopoulou, A.E.