Autobiographical life storytelling is valuable for older adults to maintain narrative identity and strengthen social bonds. However, it is often presented in static, one-way formats, with limited opportunity for deeper audience engagement. This paper introduces MyTime, a hybrid boardgame co-designed with two older adult storytellers. The game involves sorting physical cards representing the storyteller's key personal and historical events into a timeline, with a custom app offering additional text, photo, audio, or video information related to each story. We evaluated MyTime through play with the storytellers’ families. Findings show that the flip-to-reveal and scan-for-story elements invited engagement and discussion. Historical events served as anchors that helped storytellers retrieve their memories and families connect personal stories to known events. The study reveals opportunities for future design, highlighting the value of hybrid games in creating accessible life story records that encourage meaningful family story sharing.

Emerging generative AI (GenAI) tools, which are known to encompass cultural biases, are anticipated to significantly impact creative work, especially as they become incorporated into professional software suites such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, Figma, and Miro. Professionals and pundits predict positive and negative outcomes, ranging from substantial productivity gains to the risk of reduced employment opportunities for creative practitioners, concerns around intellectual property, and fears that a lack of diversity in training data will result in diminished variety of creative outputs. This uncertainty makes it vital to examine how generative AI is used and perceived at the cutting edge of adoption across professional contexts in both the Global North and South. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 professional User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI) and graphic designers from across cultural contexts, with most from Global South backgrounds. Participants were at varying stages of GenAI adoption; some were exploring and others were integrating GenAI tools into their professional workflows. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we analysed participants’ experiences to understand how socio-economic and cultural situatedness shaped their engagement with GenAI tools. Our findings revealed a complex, asymmetric landscape of AI adoption within professional design workflows. We contribute insights into asymmetries within extended creative cognition, uncovering a paradox of access wherein AI provides essential scaffolding for participants’ work while simultaneously imposing a standardisation tax that constrains situated cultural expression. We propose design directions for GenAI tools that may promote cultural inclusivity and ethically responsible Human-AI collaboration.

Current AI-powered creativity support tools (AI-CSTs) primarily use text prompting to generate solution-oriented outputs. However, the potential value of multimodal prompting in designer-AI interaction, specifically the introduction of productive friction to encourage iteration and reflection, has not been fully explored. To address this, we developed SketchifAI, a prototype AI-CST, and evaluated it with design students. In a mixed-methods, within-participants study, we examined how different input modalities (text, sketch, and sketch-plus-tags) affected design students' perceived ability to express their intent, their perception of creativity support, and their divergent thinking performance. Our preliminary findings suggest that the sketch modality tended to enhance fluency, with inconclusive evidence for differences in variety, originality, or quality compared to text modality. Yet, paradoxically, participants showed a strong preference for text prompting. We discuss how AI tools might be designed to reintroduce reflection-through-sketching, ensuring that designer-AI interaction supports, rather than erodes, essential design skills in students.

A great deal has been written over the past few years about the characteristics of a new generation of students and the implications for teaching and learning. This generation, which has variously been referred to as the ‘Net Generation’, ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Generation Y’ are claimed to be very different to their predecessors in their familiarity with technologies and the regularity with which they use them. Additionally, some commentators have claimed that their immersion in technology during their developmental years has changed the way that they learn and perhaps even the physiology of their brains. This paper reports on some preliminary results from a large cross-institutional study of the implications for University teaching of the characteristics of this generation of students. This paper focuses in particular on the results of a survey of the frequency with which 2588 first year students at the University of Melbourne, the University of Wollongong and Charles Sturt University, use 41 different applications of new technologies in their study and personal lives. The results indicate that there is greater diversity in frequency of use of technology than many commentators have suggested. Importantly, the use of collaborative and self-publishing ‘Web 2.0’ technologies that have often been associated with this generation is quite low. The results of this large survey suggest that to accept the claims of some of the commentators on the changes needed in universities to cater for this generation of students without undertaking further research is likely to be a substantial mistake.

BackgroundEnrichment activities are essential for enhancing the psychosocial well-being of older adults living in residential aged care homes. There has been increasing interest in using digital technology for enrichment, but the implementation of technology requires careful support and enablement from staff to ensure that residents experience the intended benefits. ObjectiveThis study aimed to understand how care staff facilitate aged care residents’ use of the Tovertafel (“magic table” in Dutch), a technology that projects images onto a tabletop to enable groups of people to play games. The study further aimed to understand the benefits arising from the Tovertafel when facilitated by staff. MethodsWe conducted a field study in 1 residential aged care home in Queensland, Australia. The methods included semistructured interviews with the staff and residents about their experiences with the Tovertafel, observations of 4 sessions in which the residents and staff played Tovertafel games, and a diary completed by the staff after Tovertafel sessions. Data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. ResultsWe developed 3 themes through our analysis. Theme 1 highlights the need for the staff to overcome physical and personal barriers before Tovertafel sessions could take place. These included a lack of a dedicated space for playing Tovertafel games and the residents’ reluctance to attend Tovertafel sessions. Theme 2 highlights how the staff used creative strategies to make Tovertafel sessions successful. These included helping the residents learn how to interact with the games; adapting the activity to suit the capabilities of the residents; sustaining engagement by choosing appropriate games; and using prompts, questions, and storytelling to make the games more engaging. Theme 3 describes the benefits and outcomes that arose from staff-supported enablement of the Tovertafel, including participation in an enjoyable physical activity, socialization, and reminiscence. ConclusionsThis study suggests that the Tovertafel provides opportunities for aged care staff to engage in creative play and personalization catering to residents with different capabilities. However, the benefits arising from the Tovertafel are unlikely to be achieved without substantial facilitation from the staff, who play a key role in enabling the participation of the residents. Sustaining the engagement of the residents is important during Tovertafel activities and can lead to beneficial outcomes.

Social activities in long-term care homes help promote residents’ wellbeing, but their effectiveness depends on residents’ engagement. To identify design opportunities for promoting meaningful engagement, we conducted an ethnographic study on organised activities in an Australian aged care home. We observed staff fostered engagement by initiating conversations, weaving residents’ backgrounds into interactions, and adapting activities to residents’ varying abilities. However, challenges included new staff members’ unfamiliarity with residents, multi-tasking, and insufficient support to engage excluded residents. Using a care ethics lens that includes relational, situated and empathetic features of care, we show that meaningful engagement is shaped by the ethical care practices embedded in staff-resident interactions and highlight opportunities for technologies to mitigate barriers hindering staff from providing ethical care in existing activities. These opportunities include: collecting and recording residents’ interests, providing conversation prompts, enhancing activity inclusiveness, and reducing language and cultural barriers.

Virtual reality (VR) and exergame technologies are being used to promote physical activity among older adults, but research on their effectiveness for physical activity programs is spread across disciplines so there is limited understanding of the overall body of evidence. To address this gap, we conducted a scoping review. A search of the ACM Digital Library, PubMed, Science Direct, and Elsevier's Scopus found 15 relevant studies. Analysing these studies, we found that VR improves balance, muscle strength, and exercise learning in older adults. Challenges include technological barriers, concerns about simulator sickness, support for social interactions, differing motivations, and health conditions that limit capacity to use VR. We argue that future implementations of VR exercise programs for older adults should: be personalised to cater to individual needs, involve simplified interactions for improved usability, be designed to enhance social interactions, and include organizational support, through staff training and community engagement.

The caregiving environment for an older adult aging in place includes a network of caregivers working with the older adult to support their needs and maintain independence. As older adults experience cognitive and functional changes, their caregiving network expands to include spouses or siblings (who are often older adults themselves), children, friends, neighbors and community members-each bringing unique values, expectations, and goals. In this network of care, technology-enabled support offers the potential to mediate care responsibilities, such as coordinating activities and assisting with everyday tasks. However, designing these systems requires addressing value tensions among caregivers, cultural norms around aging, participatory research practices and balancing autonomy with safety concerns for older adults in later life. This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss (1) opportunities and challenges for designing technological systems for caregiving for older adults; (2) longitudinal interactions with these systems as older adults progress through stages of functional and cognitive changes; (3) potential for such systems to support caregivers while centering older adults' privacy and autonomy needs; and (4) the influence of cultural norms on caregiving and technology use.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is being used in diverse ways to enable older adults to reminisce and connect. An underexplored area is the use of VR for creating and sharing personally meaningful stories. This paper examines the use of VR technology to help nine older adults share and experience others' stories about their gardens. Through a co-design approach involving home visits, interviews, and a workshop, we examined older gardeners' perceptions and experiences of co-creating, sharing, and viewing narrated 3D garden tours captured with a VR camera. Our findings demonstrate that participants showcased the meaning, creativity, and expertise associated with their gardens and gardening practices through the VR garden tours. Viewing the garden tours created by others fostered a sense of connection among participants through shared passions and interests. Participants valued the authenticity and individuality of the tours, perceiving them as avenues for learning, inspiration, and motivation. Viewers experienced a strong sense of presence in the garden tours, particularly due to the spatial immersion, holistic perspectives, the first-person view, and the ability to exert control in the VR system. The study reveals opportunities to enhance the VR garden tour experience, including increasing sociality, improving usability and guidance, and building communities around the tours. Drawing from these insights, we develop a framework to guide future practices of conducting participatory VR storytelling with older adults. The framework outlines three critical roles involved in the process: Storyteller, Facilitator, and Audience. It also discusses five key elements that need to be considered: Intention, Narrative, Medium, Context, and Engagement.

There is growing interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) to support people living with dementia. However, there has been little investigation into caregivers’ perceptions of such tools, and how these may augment care, or introduce new challenges. To understand caregivers’ hopes and fears about technologies in dementia care, we conducted focus groups in which we introduced fictional ideas for hypothetical future technologies that would monitor and respond to care recipients’ emotional needs with music. We identified three key themes: 1) participants’ thoughtful reflections on how technology could support care, 2) participants’ need for connection and autonomy in care, and 3) how AI technologies could support the broader care network. We propose that AI technologies be employed to support social and emotional care if carefully designed to enhance caregivers’ skills, cater to diverse user needs, carefully balance autonomy and assistance for the care recipient, and augment rather than replace human care.

MATCH (Music Attuned Technology – Care via eHealth) is a music and health application that supports caregivers of people living with dementia to use music strategically to better manage care through virtual training and intuitive music technology. This study trialled a prototype version of the MATCH app with family caregivers and people with dementia residing in the community. 16 Dyads trialled the prototype MATCH app. After completing the virtual training in the app, family caregivers created personalised playlists within the app and used strategies learnt during training with the person they care for at least twice per week over 8 weeks. Pre-post measures on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q), Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory and Acceptability of the mobile app and training were captured to detect change in symptoms and feasibility of the application. Qualitative measures including a participation diary and qualitative interviews captured participant perspectives and usage of the app. Significant pre-post changes in symptom severity (-4.23 [4.9], 95% CI -7.2 to -1.3, p = 0.009) and symptom distress (-5.69 [5.8], 95% CI -9.2 to -2.2, p = 0.004) on the NPI-Q were found, but not on the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (-4.38 [11.6], 95% CI -9.9 to 1.34, p = 0.109). Subscales of the NPI-Q found significant changes to mood symptoms (-1.23 [1.9], 95% CI -2.36 to -0.01, p = 0.036) and frontal symptoms (-1.45 [23], 95% CI -2.87 to -0.05, p = 0.043), but not agitation/aggression (-1.1 (1.9], 95% CI -2.21 to 0.07, p = 0.062). 85% of carers were satisfied with the MATCH app features, and 92% were satisfied with the music training. Qualitative findings revealed that participants found the strategies to be effective, and that they were able to integrate music-based strategies into their care routines. The MATCH app was found to be feasible and acceptable; family caregivers reported that MATCH training was understandable and useful. There is preliminary evidence that music interventions implemented by trained family caregivers are effective in reducing neuropsychiatric symptoms.

As designers become familiar with Generative AI, a new concept is emerging: Agentic AI. While generative AI produces output in response to prompts, agentic AI systems promise to perform mundane tasks autonomously, potentially freeing designers to focus on what they love: being creative. But how do designers feel about integrating agentic AI systems into their workflows? Through design fiction, we investigated how designers want to interact with a collaborative agentic AI platform. Ten professional designers imagined and discussed collaborating with an AI agent to organise inspiration sources and ideate. Our findings highlight the roles AI agents can play in supporting designers, the division of authority between humans and AI, and how designers' intent can be explained to AI agents beyond prompts. We synthesise our findings into a conceptual framework that identifies authority distribution among humans and AI agents and discuss directions for utilising AI agents in future design workflows.

Language barriers pose communication challenges between aged care residents and caregivers from different cultural backgrounds, impairing residents’ wellbeing. Yet, relatively little is known about design considerations for translation technology used in aged care. To address this gap, we conducted interviews with 18 caregivers in an Australian aged care home. We found that addressing language barriers was complex due to the varied cultural backgrounds of residents and caregivers, residents’ declining language abilities, and diverse forms of everyday conversations. Caregivers desired to mitigate language barriers to provide better care, but current services and tools did not sufficiently meet their translation needs. This tension highlights a significant need for translation technologies tailored to aged care settings. We suggest that translation technology designed for aged care should establish personalized models tailored to residents’ spoken languages, incorporate features of communication technologies to adapt to residents’ abilities, and align devices with the context of daily care.

Background:Music attuned technology - care via eHealth (MATCH) supports caregivers to use music-based strategies to enhance the care of people with dementia. It comprises a mobile app with an embedded training programme co-designed by music therapy experts and service users. This article presents findings from the first MATCH trial in the community. Methods:Thirteen dyads (caregivers and care-recipients) trialled MATCH in an 8-week pre-post single-arm proof-of-concept study. We evaluated the acceptability (Acceptability E-Scale (AES)) and usability (System Usability Scale (SUS)) of MATCH, knowledge gain (Knowledge Assessment), and preliminary effects of MATCH strategies on mood and agitation (Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q); Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI)). Caregivers also completed weekly check-in interviews and maintained a paper diary, where they reported their use of MATCH (adherence) and any perceived effects; this data was analysed using thematic analysis. Results:Participants found MATCH acceptable (combined AES median score of 28, range 25-34) and useful (SUS median score of 73.5, range 55-100). NPI-Q scores showed a reduction in the severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia (median change: -5, 95% confidence interval (CI): -9, 0) and associated caregiver distress reduction (median change: -7, 95% CI: -13, 0). Qualitative findings revealed overall positive impacts of MATCH, including perceived benefits for mood, cognition, engagement and connectedness, easing personal care, and reducing agitation and caregiver stress. Additionally, findings highlighted barriers, enablers, and instances where MATCH was less helpful. Conclusion:MATCH has the potential to help people with dementia and caregivers develop new music-based routines that can support wellbeing and connectedness and reduce distress.

We are concurrently witnessing two significant shifts: voice and chat-based conversational user interfaces (CUIs) are becoming ubiquitous (especially more recently due to advances in generative AI and LLMs - large language models), and older people are becoming a very large demographic group (and increasingly adopting of mobile technology on which such interfaces are present). However, despite the recent increase in research activity, age-relevant and inter/cross-generational aspects continue to be underrepresented in both research and commercial product design. Therefore, the overarching aim of this workshop is to increase the momentum for research within the space of hands-free, mobile, and conversational interfaces that centers on age-relevant and inter- and cross-generational interaction. For this, we plan to create an interdisciplinary space that brings together researchers, designers, practitioners, and users, to discuss and share challenges, principles, and strategies for designing such interfaces across the life span. We thus welcome contributions of empirical studies, theories, design, and evaluation of hands-free, mobile, and conversational interfaces designed with aging in mind (e.g. older adults or inter/cross-generational). We particularly encourage contributions focused on leveraging recent advances in generative AI or LLMs. Through this, we aim to grow the community of CUI researchers across disciplinary boundaries (human-computer interaction, voice and language technologies, geronto-technologies, information studies, etc.) that are engaged in the shared goal of ensuring that the aging dimension is appropriately incorporated in mobile / conversational interaction design research.

Therapeutic virtual reality (VR) can be a tool, platform or experience imaginary in the healthcare setting. Emotions and affective interaction are integral to the care needs and experiences in digital healthcare, yet remain under-investigated in therapeutic VR. We reflect on four cases involving therapeutic VR to critically examine the function and value of affective interaction. Through a synthesis of the cases, we identify how affective interaction can enhance or diminish healthcare outcomes and even cause potential harm. We draw five recommendations for the design and evaluation of therapeutic VR to challenge assumptions about: (1) knowledge holders and knowledge co-production in design, (2) hyper-visiblity of medical gaze and invisibility of affective experiences, (3) diverse utilities of VR, (4) weaving assessment of affective benefits and harms into evaluation of therapeutic VR, and (5) implementation of therapeutic VR in collaboration with caregivers.

Video calls are increasingly being adopted to enable older adults living in long-term residential care (aged care homes) to remain socially connected with friends and family. However, care home residents often require extensive support to participate effectively in video calls. Despite growing interest in examining the work involved in facilitating technology use in care homes, the role of caregivers---comprising family members and staff---in facilitating video calls has received limited attention. Drawing on data from a study of family members' experiences in Australia, we analysed the essential work activities required to make video calls function in residential aged care. We show how video calling is underpinned by the development of relationships between families and staff, and how video calling requires considerable work in preparation, facilitation, and troubleshooting. We discuss how video calling systems for care homes might be designed to alleviate unwanted work, lowering the burden of call participation for residents, families, and care staff.