Social isolation of older people

This paper explores the role of domestic technologies for addressing social isolation of older people. Despite the increasing use of information and communication technologies, social isolation remains an issue amongst older people. Assistive technologies address important health needs, but there is a lack of social technologies that adequately deal with social isolation. This paper contributes to knowledge about the everyday life of older people for the purpose of designing appropriate social technology. We present an overview of the findings of a three-stage study---an expert survey, a field study and a design workshop---and describe a set of needs to inform the design of technology for ameliorating the social isolation of older people.