C. Stephanidis (Ed.): HCII 2014 Posters, Part II, CCIS 435, pp. 485–490, 2014. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 Designing Smart Home Technology for Fall Prevention in Older People Ather Nawaz 1 , Jorunn L. Helbostad 1 , Nina Skjæret 1 , Beatrix Vereijken 1 , Alan Bourke 2 , Yngve Dahl 3 , and Sabato Mellone 4 1 Department of Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway 2 Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement, EPFL, Switzerland 3 SINTEF ICT, Norway 4 Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems, University of Bologna, Italy {ather.nawaz,Jorun.Helbostad,Nina.Skjaret, Beatrix.Vereijken}@ntnu.no alan.bourke@epfl.ch, yngve.dahl@sintef.no, sabato.mellone@unibo.it Abstract. Falls in older people constitute one of the major challenges in health- care. It is important to design technologies that can help prevent falls and im- prove falls management. Smart home technology could be of importance in this context, but the technology has to be user-centred or adapted to be useful in this particular context. This study assessed usability of paper and interactive proto- types of a smart home touch screen panel. The study implemented five scena- rios related to fall risk, fall assessment and exercise guidance, designing a smart home interface for independent living in general and fall management in partic- ular. A usability evaluation showed that older people had positive experiences when using the touch screen interface. The study demonstrated the need for us- er-centred interfaces for older people in the context of falls prevention. Keywords: Falls, Seniors, Scenarios, Usability, Evaluation, Smart home, Interface design. 1 Introduction Falls in older people constitute one of the major challenges in healthcare. Falls are an important public health issue. Each year, 35% of people over the age of 65 experience one or more falls. Between 10 and 25% of fallers sustain a serious injury [1]. This has implications regarding independence, reduced quality of life, and health care costs [1]. Therefore it is important to design technologies that can help prevent falls and improve falls management. Smart home technology could be of importance in this context, but the technology has to be purpose-designed or adapted to be useful in the context of fall prevention and fall management service. Smart home technology often is envisioned to contribute to increased safety, secu- rity and well-being of people with special care needs. However, user acceptance of