Modeling a user-oriented ontology on accessible homes for supporting activities of daily living (ADL) in healthy aging

Abstract

Inaccessibility of the buildings is the most common obstacle which presents barriers for older adults with different motor abilities. An inclusive design process, where elderly and designers work together, is required to overcome this obstacle. To do so, this study proposes a user-oriented model (i) to define a knowledge presentation for designers; (ii) to assist them during the development of accessible homes and (iii) to accommodate exemplary home attributes for activities of daily living (ADL). The ontology for this model was first constructed by collecting user information through LEGO® Serious Play® on the four subdomains of motor abilities: (1) strength; (2) balance; (3) locomotion; and (4) endurance. The findings of this study are significant for future aging studies and mobile computing researches in terms of indicating that diverse motor ability difficulties are associated with different requirements of accessibility attributes, and structured knowledge is required to diagrammatize their association with ADL.