Sixteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The emergency of COVID-19 has deeply impacted the digitization of many activities and has particularly contributed to the introduction of digital solutions in welfare services. Older people, particularly affected by the pandemic, have been key players in this transformation, as seen in the case of video calls in nursing homes and digital solutions adopted for assistance and care support. Starting from these transformations, this contribution presents the first results of a longitudinal qualitative research that investigated transformations in daily habits and digital tool usage among a panel of active over 65 residents in Italian towns that were among the first affected by the pandemic. The Longitudinal Study on Older People’s Quality of Life during the COVID-19 pandemic (ILQA-19) is a longitudinal qualitative study conducted on a purposive sample of 40 men and women aged between 65 and 80 years, residing in ten countries in the rural area of the province of Lodi (in Italy) and belonging to the first COVID-19 ‘Red Zone’ in Europe. This contribution highlights how active older people have seen their approach to technology transform in recent years and, in particular, what aspects are of greatest interest to the older people in the use of digital technologies and what are the major challenges. Finally, some guidelines to reduce digital divide, and to make digitalization of welfare services better able to meet the needs and expectations of the over 65 population.