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Managing continence in nursing homes comprises a large economic and emotional factor, not only in residents’ Quality of Life but also in staffs’ Quality of Care. Notwithstanding increased engineering efforts in this area, nursing home continence care remains underexplored in HCI. To lay the groundwork for the technological design of human-centered continence care, we conducted a qualitative study involving 27 stakeholders—ranging from residents, relatives, caregivers and nurses to managers. By inductively analysing our data, we identified different perspectives on incontinence and surrounding care practices. We found continence care to be intricately interwoven within a complex ecosystem that is deeply rooted in an ideal of promoting dignity, which technological infrastructures might fall at risk of introducing miscommunication and installing distrust between stakeholders. Using the Dignity in Continence Care Framework, we provide suggestions for the design of technologies centered on supporting dignity in nursing home continence care.

Our study investigated how to design a user-friendly tablet-application to support nursing home residents in assessing their quality of life, by completing a questionnaire. A user-centred design research study was conducted together with 27 residents, six healthcare professionals, 148 master students and five researchers. The design space was explored by 22 designs, which were evaluated by means of a thematic analysis. The outcome resulted in first tentative considerations for developers of tablet-applications for nursing home residents.