Using familiar technologies in unfamiliar ways and learning from the old about the new

Findings are reported from a study of the befriending scheme for older people that includes a bi-weekly recreational telephone conference. Participants were visited in their homes soon after one of these "link-ups". What emerges is a picture of the telephone as a mundane technology. The telephone receiver, the telephone conference, and even the content of the talk are not foregrounded in the accounts of the participants. Instead, they provided a rich account of their daily experiences that happen to include the technology. Amongst these experiences, the befriending scheme in general, and the feeling of contact provided by the link-ups in particular, are seen as the most important experiences. It is concluded that the designers of domestic technologies for recreation need to focus on experience rather than tasks when formulating design requirements. The uses and gratification model developed for describing mass media usage is suggested as one way of conceptualising these requirements. Finally, an experience-artefact cycle is outlined, that parallels Carroll's task-artefact cycle, to describe the evolution of technology in this area.