Investigating Digital Tools for Blue Seniors: an Intergenerational Approach

This paper explores the practical and social needs of old people living on islands and coastal areas. We will refer to these persons as blue seniors, characterized by fragilities due to their age and the fact that they live in areas that often are beautiful from an environmental point of view, but are characterized by logistical difficulties and extreme phenomena due to global warming (e.g. heat strokes, flooding). This work is focused on the analysis of a representative case study, the city of Venice, and presents the results of a full semester co-design activity targeted at proposing digital solutions for coping with the aforementioned seniors’ needs. The activity involved more than 200 seniors and 100 university students living in Venice and nearby areas, giving interesting results in terms of design proposals and inter-generational dialogue.