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The user

Sam and Carol are senior citizens living in California with their 5 children split across London Canada Mexico New York and Australia. Sam and Carol are not very computer savvy and dread using the computer to stay in touch with their children. They continuously find themselves calculating time-zones so they can call their children and grand children and even then don't find them available to talk on most occasions.

The experience

Viva is a very easy to use communication device targeted to solve the problem of loneliness for senior citizens. It can be used to send and receive pictures and video files to a selected number of people defined as a family. It’s an asynchronous medium of communicating one to many where everyone can send messages and updates at their convenience. It has a built in camera and microphone that allows senior citizens to record and send video messages to their family with a click of a button.

Viva is designed to offer limited set of features to keep the interface clean and simple for senior citizens. On screen text is offered in big font size to make it easily readable for aging eyes. Each Viva can be completely controlled through a web interface so the younger generation can assist their senior parents with troubleshooting and preferences of the interface from a distance.

Geographically split families can send pictures and videos to their Viva family account via email and those pictures and messages automatically shows up on everyone’s Vivas registered under the family account. Alternatively everyone who has an email address registered under the family account will also get an email with the update.

A day in the life of a Viva user:

Sam and Carol wake up in the morning to find a video message waiting on their Viva. When they play the message they see their granddaughters in Australia wanting to show them their Halloween costumes. Sam and Carol instantly felt connected to their family and decide to send them a thank you message. Sam simply clicks the record button on his Viva, they record a video message, preview it and send it. The message is instantly received on everyone’s Viva and also arrives in everyone’s email inbox so they can view it on their computers. Sam and Carol’s family is connected once again despite the physical distances between them.