ViewBricks: a participatory system to increase social connectedness for the elderly in care homes

Driven by the maturing of Internet and the development of the Internet of Things, people are becoming connected not only via the smart personal devices, but also via the increasingly responsive and connected environments, which brings up new opportunities to involve potential user group like elderly people into this network through tangible interaction and embedded systems. This paper presents the design and implementation of a participatory view-sharing system which consists of a group of specially designed camera kits and a gallery-like interactive installation, aiming to increase the social connection between elderly people living in a care home and the local communities around. The camera kits are designed to provide openness for local people to share sceneries via public participation, while the interactive installation presents the continuous real-time changes of the shared outside views, and triggers further communication between sharers and receivers through a “postcard-sending” metaphor. In this study, we mainly explore the possibilities of connecting people and facilitating social interaction through the combination of online and offline sharing behaviour, as well as the application of IoT technology.