Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
7.1 “Wish list” for enhancements for the commercial system
They were related mainly to higher intelligence&personalisation, improved usability and
additional services.
7.1.1 Services enhancement for higher intelligence&personalisation
For the purpose of better personalisation, the free text reminders on the Carebox are
suggested to be enhanced so they can contain longer text and, with advantage, to make it
possible for the elderly him/her self to create their own text reminders, if the elderly is able
to do it. It would also be an advantage for the users if the system is able to atomically create
voice files for these free text reminders through speech synthesis. The reminders
functionality can also be enhanced with more pre-defined reminders and advanced by
having additional services such as shopping list reminders for the elderly people.
Other suggestions for enhancing the services and their usability concern implementing even
more intelligence into the platform for automatic synchronisation of the calendar service
events with the service for home presence. And for the cooker service, it would be an
advantage to make separate time settings for the cooker plates and for the oven seeing that
users have individual patterns and the oven shows to be used for a longer time than the
cooker plates are. Users also suggest for the functionality of the intelligent front door service
to be able to work without the bed sensor because there are cases when bed sensor cannot be
used.
Further enhancement of the services is to create the possibility of having a small message
board on the Carebox that can show to the elderly a SMS message sent by their care-givers
mobile devices. In this way, the relatives will be able to send a SMS to the Carebox so the
SMS text can be shown on the screen to the elderly person.
7.1.2 Usability enhancement
Some of the first suggestions focused on enhancing usability of the services, the portal and
the Carebox - for instance, improving the visual aspect of the portal and the Carebox for
enhancing the user interface to be usable by visual, hearing or cognitive impaired users. This
will also create the possibility for other people with disabilities (blind/ deaf) to interact with
the system.
7.1.3 “Entertainment” features
For the purpose of enhancing satisfaction of the elderly people and their family caregivers, it
was suggested to include “entertainment” features - plug-ins for facilitating distribution of
relevant information such as local news, the weather forecast, favourite music, etc. These
entertainment features are to be accessible and shown on the Carebox screen by assigning
for such a service.
7.1.4 Reflections
The automation degree of the services, together with their availability, was seen as a key
feature for the family care-givers. Informal caregivers are willing to have very few degree of
