Freek van der Weij
Profile
To preserve human capabilities as people age, governments, organizations and individuals increasingly turn to technology. Rising healthcare costs due to aging populations put pressure on this development. Often however, new technologies are not well-attuned to the needs and desires of the intended user group and instead emerge out of fascination for technological possibilities.
My PhD project focuses on how we can strengthen consideration of first-person lived experience in the development of health technology, particularly for older adults. Relevant methods towards this aim that will be considered and compared are the capability approach, the Warm Technology approach and phenomenology. However, theoretical suitability of a method for designing technology does not mean that it will also be put into practice. The project will therefore also involve a study on how interdisciplinary collaboration between the fields of ethics of technology and technology design can be improved.