Abstract:

The current society is based on several and different relations and collaborations among people, which create an invaluable and very precious immaterial richness for the whole society. People naturally need to share thoughts, opinions, and know-how, offering their skills and intellectual activities to other people in order to feel as part of the community.

Every person has, therefore, a precise social role and value in the society. Thanks to this fact every single individual can feel included and socially useful.
Following the natural development of the course of life, older people retire. They leave their everyday jobs and routines and start a new last period of their life, where they have to “re-define” and “re-think” themselves.

According to some studies about the above subject, after a few years from retirement, people have finished their initial euphoria and very often become bored and sometimes depressed. The lack of a real occupation makes the pensioners dissatisfied with their own condition, making them feel useless within society. These moods could cause different diseases both physical and mental. Trying to avoid these ones, the aim of the research is to restore the social value of these people, making them feel as a fundamental part of the society, and finding them a concrete and helpful role. This one has to valorize their knowledge and know-how to be useful and an active part for the community. For instance, in our society very often they take care of their grandchildren helping their descendants when at work. Recognizing their many skills, despite retirement, the research proposes a practical solution represented by a digital platform as a tool to be used by pensioners to offer their knowledge to other young people of the community. The platform, working as a “social network” is also able to pass on know-how and skills from older to young people, and to create relationships and collaborations through the whole community.

The Design approach starts from the principles of Human Centered Design and Human Factor Design considering seniors as the main users of the present work.
The research has referred to a trans-disciplinary approach involving together with UI/UX design many disciplines such as economy, psychology and sociology necessary to understand behaviors and capabilities of the older people. Moreover the work tested also the level of acceptance and appreciation of the older people about the proposed tool.

For the purposes of research, interviews and workshop activities were conducted with a group of pensioners meeting together at a municipal old people's centre in Florence in order to evaluate possible solutions. In conclusion the work presents the development of a digital tool designed for inclusion of older people able to offer their help and their abilities to the community to feel and to be useful for the society.

Keywords:

Design, Social Network, Human Centered Design, Senior, Inclusion.