Developing an effective social presence system for older adults: The Connected Vitality Network

Communication over distance via the use of communication technologies aims to offer and enable contact for older adults, who are typically restricted in terms of mobility and tend to suffer from loneliness due to the lack of social inclusion. Technologies enable communication over distance but suffer greatly in terms of providing the feeling of being connected, lacking also social presence during a remote contact. The Connected Vitality Network puts older adults at the centre of attention to study their needs for designing suitable human computer interaction methods and implement a social (tele)-presence system, which enables closeness and promotes social inclusion. Key research studies, workshop results, design principles and implementation details are presented in this paper.