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International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health

ICT4AWE 2017: Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health pp 21–45Cite as

Living with Disabilities – The Many Faces of Smart Home Technology Acceptance

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 869))

Abstract

To face the challenges of increasing care needs due to demographic change, the development of smart home and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies present one approach, which is continuously forwarded. Besides aspects of technical development and implementation, user acceptance of diverse stakeholders plays a major role for a successful rollout and sustainable adoption of those technologies. So far, user acceptance research in this context has concentrated mostly on age-related issues. In contrast, disabilities and related care needs have hardly been researched yet. The current study focused on persons having different experiences with disabilities and care needs. In a qualitative interview pre-study (n = 9) and a follow-up quantitative online questionnaire study (n = 279) perceived benefits and barriers, use conditions, and acceptance of AAL technologies were contrasted. Four user groups were under study: disabled participants, relatives of disabled persons, professional caregivers, and, as a control group, persons without experience with disabilities. Results indicate that disabled and care-needy people show a higher acceptance and intention to use an AAL system than not-experienced people and especially professional caregivers. The motives for acceptance and rejection differ strongly regarding user diversity as well. The results contribute to a better understanding of user-specific acceptance of smart home and AAL technologies and show that the integration of diverse user groups into the technologies’ design and evaluation process is necessary.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all participants for their patience and openness to share opinions on a novel technology and the sensitive topics disabilities and care needs. Furthermore, the authors want to thank Lisa Portz for research assistance. This work was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Project Whistle (16SV7530).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University, 52074, Aachen, Germany

    Julia van Heek, Simon Himmel & Martina Ziefle

Authors
  1. Julia van Heek
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  2. Simon Himmel
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  3. Martina Ziefle
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julia van Heek .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe, Lemgo, Germany

    Carsten Röcker

  2. Imperial College London, London, UK

    John O’Donoghue

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Martina Ziefle

  4. Wroclaw University of Economics, Wroclaw, Poland

    Leszek Maciaszek

  5. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    William Molloy

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van Heek, J., Himmel, S., Ziefle, M. (2018). Living with Disabilities – The Many Faces of Smart Home Technology Acceptance. In: Röcker, C., O’Donoghue, J., Ziefle, M., Maciaszek, L., Molloy, W. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health. ICT4AWE 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 869. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93644-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93644-4_2

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