Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Minna Isomursu and Marja Harjumaa
the user. Exercise application of this service has described in more detail in Muuraiskangas et al.
(2010).
The fourth case study, Wayfinding, evaluated a prototype for wayfinding support for older people both
inside and outside within a near proximity of a nursing home. The participants were given navigation
aids using three modalities; visual, audio, and tactile signals. Nine participants participated in the
study. The results are described in more detail in Sorri et al. (2011).
The fifth case study, Medicine management, introduced three different kinds of services for older
users. First, a NFC-enabled PDA for medicine information retrieval was studied with eight older
participants (more details in Isomursu et al. (2009)). Second, a PC-based application with a touch-tospeech
user interface for vision impaired older users for identifying medication, and consuming
medication related information was studied. The field trial was iterative, and involved the total of eight
users at different phases of iterative trials. Third, an application for attaching audio information to
everyday items, such as food containers and medicine packages, using a mobile phone and NFCtags
was studied with ten visually impaired users, including both older and younger users.
The sixth case study, Video-assisted communication, explores an ongoing field trial which started in
December 2010 and is planned to end in August 2011. In this context, a video-communication service
is introduced for older users and their carers who are using respital care service of private service
provider for enhancing social interaction.
The common nominator for all case studies was that they aimed at providing information about user
experience, adoption and impacts of new ICT-supported service concepts in real-world conditions.
3.2 Data collection
The lead author of this paper has been the scientific supervisor of five of the six case studies. The
second author has been the researcher responsible for data collection and analysis of fourth and fifth
case study. To complement their personal experiences, four researchers that participated data
collection and analysis of the explored case studies were interviewed. The interviews were semistructured
theme interviews, where the following themes were discussed:
Experiences of evaluating services with older users
Practical issues that were considered before and during the study
Description on how the user experience, adoption and impact were studied
Challenges with (1) the user, (2) usage context, and (3) technology
What the interviewees think they learned while conducting research with older users
The researchers interviewed were aged from 26 to 37. Table 1 summarizes the background
researchers whose experience contributes to findings of this paper.
Table 1: Summary of contributors
Interview no Gender Age Participation in analysed case studies
1 Male 27 Medicine management
2 Female 26 Wellness management, medicine management
3 Female 27 Medicine management, wayfinding, video-assisted
communication
4 Male 37 Meal delivery service, grocery ordering service, medicine
management
Second author Female 30 Medicine management, video-assisted communication
Supervisor Female 41 Medicine management, wayfinding, video-assisted
communication, meal delivery service, grocery ordering service
4. Findings
In the following subchapters, we will discuss and summarize the experiences from conducting field
trials with older users. Two main issues arise through the analysis process. The first issue deals with
the characteristics of older users as a user group. The second issue arises from the challenges that
the researchers have faced in the field work with older users.
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