Design sketching for assistive travel services

Abstract

This paper outlines some important qualities of sketching as a design technique for assistive technologies. During the design process of a collaborative project, we studied four different types of sketches with seniors. Through these sketches we discussed ideas around tourism, human values and interaction issues with special regards to the context of aging. The design process, insights and results from studies with fifty senior travelers showed that, design sketching has different impacts based on the sketch type. This further impacts the nature of data gathered from multi-faceted design space of AAL for future products. As visual and corporate design of AAL products are becoming increasingly important for the adoption of such products, the detailed understanding of related design techniques such as sketching is equally important for the development of such products.