Connecting families with ICTs: A board messaging system for older adults and their family abroad

Many older adults in Mexico are likely to experience isolation and emotional discomfort because of the migration of one or more family members to the USA. Despite the increasing number of communication tools provided by the Internet, their current design and characteristics, limit their use by older adults. Our work aims at offering a board-based messaging system with a simplified interface, which can be used by older adults to interchange messages and pictures through the Internet with those members of their family living abroad. The system works as a shared board of messages that family members can access from any web browser. We report on the design and the implementation of the system, and the plans for a future in-situ evaluation.