Piloting Intelligent Methodologies for Assisted Living Technology Through a Mixed Research Approach: The VINCI Project in Cyprus

This chapter presents the procedure and results of piloting vINCI, a new ambient assisted technology. vINCI aims to enhance older adults’ active life and quality of living by measuring end-users’ physical, psychological and social state and providing them with information and feedback about any necessary corrective measures they need to take. To achieve this, vINCI has been based on a microservices architecture and integrated IoT (Internet of Things) monitoring technologies and artificial intelligence. The interconnected devices which are capturing end-users’ biopsychosocial state are tablets (the vINCI app), smart insoles and smart watches. In order to ensure that end-users would accept and use such set of technologies, this study employed a mixed research methodology to understand any acceptability factors. The results indicated that clarity of instructions, comfort of technology, ease to use, usefulness, and a sense of safety, control, familiarity and normalisation were very important features of vINCI, which could cause participants to accept and use such technology. The study highlights the importance of a mixed research method for gauging acceptability in order to ensure that the end-users’ experience with new technology during pilots is fully captured and understood.