BRINGING THE ELDERLY INTO THE MAINSTREAM OF E-SOCIETY: THE VITAL PROJECT
Author(s):
Ingo Zinnikus,
Klaus Fischer,
Jan Alexandersson,
Unai Diaz
Paper abstract: In the not-so-distant past, senior citizens often disappeared from the mainstream activities of society. In
the EU project VITAL, the aim is to encourage users to go out of home, to travel, to meet other people,
to participate in events; in summary to have an active and self-satisfying life that will empower aging
citizens to play a full role in society, to increase their autonomy and to realize their potential and finally
to improve web usability for digitally disadvantaged persons. Elderly users have special requirements
with respect to user interfacing approaches and home delivered services. VITAL proposes the
combination of iTV technologies, agent- based services and innovative multimodal interfaces as the best
way to overcome the reluctance elderly users show to the introduction of information technology.
Keywords:
E-Citizenship and Inclusion, Information Systems, Intelligent Agents, Social Integration
