Dependability Requirements to Aid the Design of Virtual Companions for Later Life
نویسندگان
چکیده
Frail older people can normally not be given round-the-clock care-giving assistance. During the time there is no other person around they must be independent. Electronic assistive technology (EAT) can increase an older person's independence in everyday life, but to do so it must be dependable. This paper examines issues of dependability for a special class of EAT software, virtual companions for later life. A virtual companion is a personal system of interconnected functions aiming to assist an elderly user by imitating elder-caregiver interaction. In order to provide designers with an aid for defining, designing, and validating virtual companions, the first part of the paper identifies and discusses the special dependability requirements to be put on such software. The second part describes our own approach, and gives suggestions on how to design for dependability.
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