Empowering Older Adult Crafters toElectronically EnhanceArtifacts for Health

Ben JelenKatie SiekIndiana UniversityBloomington, IN 47408, USAbcjelen@indiana.eduksiek@indiana.edu

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AbstractOlder adult crafters have many skills in creating their ownartifacts that make them particularly well-suited to design-ing their own devices. In this paper, we explore what olderadults would create to improve their health if they could in-tegrate electronics into their crafting projects. We explorethis topic using ethnographic-style observations of 5 dif-ferent groups, a survey exploring how they craft and theirinterest in health and technology, and conclude with a par-ticipatory design workshop currently underway. Our studyoffers insights into older adult crafters’ practices and an un-derstanding of what health devices they would create if theymade them themselves.

Author KeywordsOlder adults; crafting technology; health; maker technology;Arduino; crafts; participatory design; observations; survey

ACM Classification KeywordsH.5.m [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI)]:Miscellaneous

IntroductionThere has long been an interest in the HCI community tosupport older adults’ health, whether through aging in placetechnologies [9] or supporting their health interests in tech-nology [7]. Despite this long standing interest, there are still

many opportunities to support older adults by meeting theirneeds in a way that they find value in adopting a new tech-nology [2]. For example, making technology is "invisible",or not obvious that it’s a computer, makes it more likely tobe accepted by older adults [2]. By designing technology toseamlessly integrate into their lives, we can personalize andcontextualize assistive technologies to help older adults [8].

Recently, the research community explored supportingolder adults’ creative activities in an art therapy setting [6].Outside of a formal therapy setting, engaging in craftingactivities, such as pottery and quilting, are associated withlower odds of mild cognitive impairments [5]. Creative activ-ities give older adults an opportunity for personal growth, asense of purpose, and a feeling of competence [4]. Throughthese activities, they accumulate skills in making artifactswith their hands, often with a particular goal in mind, suchas donating a textured "fiddle quilt" to a local memory-careunit.

Figure 1: Sample quilt we createdas an example of integratingelectronics into crafting. We used aLilyPad Arduino with 4 LEDs in theinsert respond to theaccelerometer.

We have started exploring what older adult crafters wouldbe interested in making if they could augment their craftswith technology (e.g. Figure 1), thereby creating their ownpersonalized, context-fitting health technologies. Given theright tools and support, they could make sensing and track-ing artifacts to seamlessly fit their needs and integrate intotheir lives. To do this, we observed several older adult craft-ing groups, collected a survey exploring health and craftinginterests, and, at the time of writing this submission, areconducting a participatory design workshop to identify whatolder adult crafters are interested in creating. We will have3-5 workshops completed (final number will be based onsaturation of ideas) and analyzed before the workshop.Through our work, we will highlight the opportunities forolder adults to make their own health sensing devices.

Our contributions to the WISH community are the following:

1. We present a better understanding of older adultcrafters and their established crafting groups. Theseestablished groups offer opportunities to supportolder adults in learning digital crafting by cateringto how many of them are already learning socially.

2. We offer a list of what types of devices older adultcrafters would create with electronics if there wereno limitations. We are encouraging them to createhealth-related devices, but increasing engagement increative activities alone is valuable.

Related WorkCrafting and hobbyist groups are growing not only in com-munities across the world, but also in online communi-ties [1]. Many older adults are already passionate aboutcreating their personally meaningful artifacts [10]. Theyhave the necessary skills, talents, and interests for exper-imentation and design with new technology [12]. Askingolder adults their opinion on designing health technologiesthat cater to their needs can be very fruitful and can pro-vide an array of ideas of how use some of the benefits oftechnology to improve their health [3].

Older adults who participate in senior center activities re-lated to arts and crafts reported several health benefits fortheir well-being, including interactions with friends, self-growth, mental enrichment, and a sense of purpose [4].This work also indicates that creativity contributes to activeaging by fostering a sense of expertise, purpose, skill, andgrowth.

MethodsThe goals of our methods were to better understand bothhow to build on older adult crafters’ skill sets and to ex-plore their interest in managing their health. To accom-

plish this, we conducted ethnographic-style observations tolearn more about older adult crafting groups. We then con-ducted a survey to broaden our understanding of older adultcrafters while beginning to explore their interest in health.Finally, we are actively facilitating participatory design work-shops to brainstorm what types of electronic devices theyare interested in integrating into their crafts. The studieswere approved by Indiana University’s Institutional ReviewBoard.

Figure 2: Primary craft for eachsurvey participant. The counts areseparated by age into <65 yearsold or 65 and older.

ObservationsWe recruited older adult crafting groups from Bloomington,Indiana and surrounding communities by contacting groupsdirectly or reaching out to older adult-centric organizations.We defined our target population as groups with at least40% of their members over the age of 65 and whose aimwas to craft a tangible object (many appeared to be closerto 90%). We recruited 4 groups by showing up in personto ask permission, and a fifth, Quilt-Collab, via snowballsampling (Table 1). Only 1 of the 45 unique participantswere male (Fiber-Mixed), and no incentives were provided.

Figure 3: Paper Circuit templatefrom Jie Qi’s Circuit StickerNotebook [11].

Researchers introduced themselves and received verbalconsent at the beginning of each crafting session. Over 10weeks, we attended a total of 23 hours over 12 separatesessions. Researchers visited each group at least twice foran average of 2 hours at a time.

Three researchers, two not associated with observations,iteratively analyzed the observation field notes using anaffinity diagram method.

SurveyTo complement our observations, we conducted a surveyexploring crafters’ habits, their interest in technology, andtheir interest in health. We recruited participants from theobservation groups via paper surveys, and recruited for

an online version through the researchers’ social media.For a comparison, we allowed anyone over 18 years oldto complete the survey, and the only requirement was thatthey made something tangible. We collected 142 unique re-sponses. Forty-one were over the age of 65 and 137 werefemale. The respondents had a wide variety of primarycrafts, but most were knitters (65), sewers (22), crocheters(20), and quilters (11) (Figure 2).

Participatory Design WorkshopWe are utilizing the observation recruiting methods to re-cruit older adult crafters. The participatory design work-shops will occur outside of their current crafting group times.

The workshops consist of a set of three two-hour sessionsfocused on 1.) understanding their crafting habits and prac-tices, 2.) building up their knowledge of small electronicslike Arduino, and 3.) prototyping ideas of how they wouldelectronically enhance their craft (Figure 4).

In the first session, participants will teach the research teamabout their crafts by having a show-and-tell and focus groupdiscussion on their crafting. We also will have them fill out asurvey on demographics, crafting habits, and familiarity withtechnology.

After building up participants’ comfort level, the second ses-sion is focused on the research team teaching the partic-ipants skills relevant to small electronics. We do so witha paper circuit activity to teach them some basics of elec-tronic circuitry [11], and they make their own birthday card.Next, we will show them some basic Arduino componentsand have them test out an activity using an already pro-grammed Grove Kit from Seeed Studios (Figure 5). We willalso do a pre- and post-test to evaluate their confidencelevels in working with electronics.

Group ID Craft Type Project Type Frequency Organization Type AverageAttendees

SessionsObserved

Quilt-Mixed Quilting Mixed Weekly Community Recreation Center 5.33 4Fiber-Indiv Fiber Arts Individual Weekly Retirement Community 6.5 2Pottery-Indiv Pottery Individual Twice Weekly Retirement Community 6.5 2Fiber-Mixed Fiber Arts Mixed Weekly Senior Center 8 2Quilt-Collab Quilting Collaborative 2-4 Weeks Private Individuals 4.5 2

Table 1: Details on the types of crafting groups recruited for the study.

Session 1: Teach us Your CraftSurvey: demographics, crafting habits,

technology familiarityShow-and-Tell: show us a recently made objectFocus Group: crafting practices, motivations,

learning skills, important skills

Session 2: Learn about ElectronicsSurvey: pre- and post- evaluation about

electronics interest and knowledgePaper Circuits: basic circuitry using paper,

copper tape, and LEDsArduino Exposure: interactive Arduino session

with inputs, and outputsPhoto Elicitation: provide cameras for elicitation

Session 3: PrototypeDebrief: review pictures from photo elicitationBrainstorm: group discussion of ideasPrototype: office supplies, pre-cut shapes,

Arduino componentsSurvey: feedback and health interests

1 week

1 week

Figure 4: Participatory DesignWorkshop activities; We will have3-5 workshops with 4-10participants per workshop.

Figure 5: Grove Prototyping Kit forArduino from Seeed Studios. Thekit contains components such asLEDs, light sensors, soundsensors, and LCD screens - allmodularly connected via 4 pincables.

Finally, the third session is where we will create low-fidelityprototypes based on their ideas. To facilitate idea genera-tion, participants are encouraged between sessions to takepictures or videos of ideas in their own homes to share.These media will be shared in a brainstorming session tohelp inspire participants, after which they will create low fi-delity prototypes using office supplies, pre-cut shapes (e.g.an Arduino), and sample physical components like LEDs.We will conclude with a questionnaire asking for feedbackon the workshop as well as specific questions about theirhealth interests based on Davidson’s work [3].

Similar to the observation, the workshop will be analyzedusing an affinity diagram to analyze themes. Also, surveydata will have descriptive statistics, and the pre-post test forthe second session will be analyzed using a paired t-testto validate whether or not the participants improved theirunderstanding of electronics.

ResultsObservationsThree major themes came out of the observations of olderadult crafting groups – group structure, group support, andartifact sharing – which helped to inform how we can workwith these groups in the future. Group structure was split

into three categories defined by the overall function of thegroup – independent projects, collaborative projects, andclass style. Quilt-Mixed, Fiber-Indiv, and Fiber-Mixed par-ticipants (Table 1) had varying skill levels and were mostlyworking on individual projects. Of these, Quilt-Mixed andFiber-Mixed sometimes worked on collaborative projects,but primarily participants worked by themselves in a low-stress, social setting. Quilt-Collab was the only collaborativeproject group who was focused on submitting a quilt fora competition. Their meetings were much less social andmore driven by the collaborative nature. Lastly, Pottery-Indivwas a class style group that relied on paid facilitators tolead the group through structured activities.

The way groups supported their members came in sev-eral different forms. The most common form of support wasfacilitating help between participants. Some groups had ashow-and-tell style session that helped members elicit feed-back from each other. Supporting beginner crafters wasalso a crucial function of these groups, but the groups dif-fered in terms of who was expected to help. Pottery-Indiv’sfacilitators were clear help, but other groups used the exper-tise of experienced members to support these beginners.Additionally, they shared several tools and resources differ-ently between groups such as magazines, websites, andinsights from television programs.

Each group shared artifacts they crafted differently, bothwithin the group and to others outside of the group. Shar-ing within the group was often done to solicit feedback on aproject and provide validation that a crafter belonged there.Externally, artifacts were given away as gifts or donations,submitted to a competition, or sold for others to enjoy. Giv-ing them as gifts or donations was the most common, butinterestingly, some participants described selling artifactsso others could enjoy them. One prolific quilter sold her ar-tifacts at the cost of materials because she wanted othersto enjoy them in spite of cajoling from other crafters trying toearn income from their sales.Figure 6: Survey results depicting

where crafters go to get help.Magazines, Online Videos, andSocial Media are the three greatestdisparaties.

Figure 7: Responses to thequestion gauging their interest incrafting after seeing images ofitems like Figure 1

SurveyThere were three main portions of the survey – craftinghabits, interest in technology, and interest in health. Welearned a lot about older adults’ preferences in how theycraft. One notable difference between older adults to thoseyounger than 65 is that a higher percentage of older adultslooked to magazines to help and they looked at onlinevideos and social media less (Figure 6). After showing sur-vey participants an example (i.e. Figure 1), few older adultswere interested in integrating technology with their craft(Figure 7). Overall, older adults were not as interested asothers in knowing more about their health with on average15.6% interested in certain topics, but 30.9% of those under65.

DiscussionIn a presentation, the WISH community will learn aboutolder adult crafting groups and how leveraging establishedgroups could support teaching older adults new skills by re-flecting how they currently create. Being sensitive to theway they structure their groups, support members, andshare artifacts can help to create a supportive environmentfor older adults to learn new skills.

The community will also learn what older adults would cre-ate to improve their health if they could make somethingthemselves. We are bridging the gap of understanding howthey could create using electronics by focusing on a sub-set of older adults who are already creating things with theirhands. This group can then take what they learn and de-sign their own health-improving devices using what theyalready know. This can result in a series of devices thatare more context-appropriate and personalized to individu-als’ lifestyles. In addition, researchers can inform their ownartifacts for older adults’ ideas. Therefore, the ideas theydeveloped through this workshop will likely be novel andinteresting for the WISH community.

This work is also an excellent example of a technical par-ticipatory design workshop where researchers are trying tobuild up participants’ technical skills before prototyping withthem. We anticipate disseminating lessons learned andbest practices from the workshop study.

AcknowledgementsWe thank our participants throughout the BloomingtonArea, including facilitators and contacts at local organiza-tions who helped to make this possible. We also thank ourcollaborators who helped collect data and provide feedback,Leslie Liu, Tom Ongwere, Anna Baglione, Olivia Richards,Samantha Whitman, Harrison Carter, and Yaokun Zhang.This work is supported in part by the National ScienceFoundation Award IIS-1439241.

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