The case for including senior citizens in the playable city

Abstract

The topic of "playable cities" has recently emerged as a variation on smart cities, focusing on ways to make urban spaces more playfully interactive and fun by incorporating digital technology. Existing work in this field has largely focused on explorative design and case studies. As of yet, there are barely any design guidelines specific to the context. In this paper, we motivate the need for urban interaction designers to consider the restrictions of senior citizens, give a broad overview over interaction design recommendations for older adults as relevant for urban spaces, examine selected published "playable city" case studies for their suitability regarding this population group, and propose some preliminary design guidelines for future work.