Keio University - SFC Graduate School of Media and Governance Cyber Informatics Ogawa Katsuhiko Sensei Lab Varela Mariana Alejandra 学生番号: 81225655 Research Title: Social Networking Service for Helping Each Other in the Neighborhoods

The project has been been suffering some changes in topic since I submited the initial concept to receive Mori Fund. Started with the idea of a social network, but little by little, by the guidance of Sensei and several Interviews, delivered a much more polished concept of the main idea to reseach. The research question is: "Can social networks introduce seniors to the Communication Technologies"? I would like to learn more about this and continue developing my tool for test with seniors.

The following is a report of my activities ever since I got the Mori Research Fund this Fall Semester 2013. I have been saving the expenses to use them wisely. My activities ever since I received Mori fund can be separated into 2 archs: During the first 3 months, I went on Gasshuku with all the members of the Lab and learned more about User Experience testing. Also, had a new interview with Mori san, from a PC school in Tokyo that teaches the elderly how to use Internet. Talked again about the topics and she advised to change the topic into something more general because a social network for finding new friends and love may not be attractive enough. I was decided to follow the concept of weak bonded generations and the emergence of a tool that works as a node to connect people, rediscover the neighbors and harvest a solidarity spirit among them. The new concept title is: A social newtwork for helping each other in Neightbourhoods, The users could has for help to another neighbours in the tasks they needed to perform. The main hypothesis wants to show that if old and young people can get together in one virtual space, they can enhance the communication and try to bridge the gap among young and old generations. I designed and performed a first test with users and paper prototypes. The results were satisfactory but still need to make new changes. In the second arch of this semester, I adjusted the concept a little again and changed into an Question and Answer site for the elderly, where they can make questions related to the technologies where other elderly or young people answer with their own words. Made a new test this time not with paper, but on the computer. The results again were satisfactory but still many changes have to been done.

Please click here to see some pictures of the experience with the users (9 users tested so far)

The biggest achievement this semester was the acceptance in the conference ICDS 2014 as work in progress (short paper) / academic research in Barcelona on March 26th. I will be speaking at the conference showing my research, and decided to use Mori Fund to pay for the participation fee.