Users of pervasive healthcare systems will be increasingly characterized by diversity. Relying only on highly experienced and technology-prone user groups, which might have been typical users in the last decades, is not sufficient anymore. Instead, elderly users or users with a completely different…
Users of pervasive healthcare systems will be increasingly characterized by diversity. Relying only on highly experienced and technology-prone user groups, which might have been typical users in the last decades, is not sufficient anymore. Instead, elderly users or users with a completely different domain knowledge, will have to use the systems. While current research focuses mainly on technological and/or medical aspects, there is a major need to understand in which way physical, emotional and cognitive abilities, caused by individual learning histories and health states, may impact the usage and acceptance of these systems. Hence, not only aspects of technical feasibility, but also acceptance and usability issues of pervasive healthcare applications have to be carefully considered in order to fully exploit the potential of future healthcare applications. This requires an integrative and multidisciplinary approach, which combines engineering and medical knowledge with theoretical and methodological contributions of the humanities.