ABSTRACT
The increasing proportion of the older population and the change of Chinese family structure make Chinese older people more vulnerable to social isolation and exclusion than ever. To support older people ' s socialization activities, we designed a mobile social community platform (SCP) which facilitates organization of real life encounters and leisure time activities between adjacent older people who have similar interests. Users with this SCP will be able to search for nearby users to arrange activities with, to search for activities around to join in, or to rate activities according to their own interests. The implications of aging for interface design were collected and reviewed from literature, and Chinese older people ' s socialization needs and patterns were collected through interviews. Findings helped build the set up of the SCP, which was embodied by an entirely developed prototype application for a PDA via a user-centered design approach.
