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Attitudes toward intelligent technologies: Elderly people and caregivers in nursing homes
No full textNursing homes provide long-term care services and can help preserve the quality of life of elderly people subject to physical and cognitive impairments. In this chapter, we explore the role of intelligent technologies as a supplement to human care-giving and the potential to improve quality of life for both older adults and their caregivers in nursing homes. A study was conducted on elderly people's and caregivers' attitudes toward the use of intelligent technologies in nursing homes, with the aim of understanding in which domains of everyday activities the application of intelligent technologies can be more suitable. Results showed that attitude toward the application of intelligent technologies in nursing homes is positive, although multifaceted. Elderly people and caregivers considered intelligent technologies as relevant devices for the improvement of quality of life in different domains. Nonetheless, differences related to the role that technologies played in nursing homes clearly emerged. © 2011, IGI Global
Qualità espressive di oggetti di Industrial Design: uno studio sperimentale sull'efficacia della comunicazione
No full text
Meaning of industrial design objects: from designers to users
No full textStructural features of everyday objects of industrial design and expressive qualities possibly communicated by the same objects are investigated. The objective may be defined in terms of the following points: (1) communication between designers and users; (2) differences in appraisal between groups of experts and nonexperts; (3) systematic relationships between structural characteristics and expressive qualities of the objects considered. Three groups of subjects were interviewed: four designers responsible for the design of six objects, twenty advanced-level design students (experts), and twenty nonexpert students. All subjects had to fill in a questionnaire based on an open interview with the designers. The questionnaire was divided into two parts: structural characteristics and expressive characteristics. A multifactorial analysis and t-test were performed on the data. The results suggest that (1) communication between designers and users exists in a large number of item appraisals and is not the result of the ambiguity of the physical properties of the objects; (2) specific training in design has a direct influence upon object appraisal, indicating a certain differentiation between the groups of experts and nonexperts; (3) there are no systematic correlations between structural and expressive characteristics except in one very specific case: between the structural characteristic of shape and consistency of material, on the one hand, and the expressive qualities of dynamism, on the other
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