Materializing SPA · Neeta Khanuja

from the formative study

The materials start from part one: probe booklets and interviews with 24 older adults across private homes, assisted living and old age homes. We analysed the interviews for recurring emotional expressions and selected 25 that came up often, such as frustration, nostalgia, concern, happiness and acceptance.

Illustration: an older woman writing in her probe booklet, and an interview at a table with an older woman holding her booklet.

ii.

the self-reflection tool

The tool from part two (DIS 2026 pictorial) was the first material. A person selects a SPA aspect, records a short reflection and receives guidance that combines an empathetic acknowledgement, a short reading of a verse and a few concrete suggestions. Practitioners used it for their own reflections, so they could feel its tone and its limits before thinking about older adults.

Illustration of a woman using the tool on her phone at a table, beside three app screens: choosing a card, the prompt What are your thoughts on relationships today?, and the guidance.

tonePractitioners found the guidance gentle, “supportive and calming”, and recognised familiar ideas such as seva, “something we subconsciously know.”
limitsWith repeated use, some guidance sounded alike, “like horoscopes”, and some responses followed keywords, reacting to “reluctance” in “I am not reluctant to change.”
requestsThey asked for voice input, “my parents will not type”, clearer prompts, and clarity on who is speaking: a friend, an expert or a divine voice.

iii.

empathic reflection cards

We paired each of the 25 emotions with an older adult’s quote and ran the quote through the tool. Each card combines the quote, the emotion labels drawn from it, and the guidance the tool returned.

Illustration of practitioners reading cards pinned to boards, beside an empathic reflection card: an older adult’s quote about losing his elder brother, the labels sadness, grief, loneliness, depression and vulnerability, and guidance referring to Arjuna’s sorrow in the Bhagavad Gita.

particular peopleReading the cards moved the talk from “older adults” in general to particular situations: a woman whose sewing machine was taken without asking, a man who “starts crying when someone asks about him.”
dilemmasPractitioners began to name dilemmas such as being taken for granted, managing grief alone, or fearing dependency.
unique peopleA week later, one wrote that people who are aging “have some shared experiences but are unique human beings with their own preferences and perspectives.”

iv.

ten aspiration cards

A systematic review of interventions shows how self-perceptions of aging can change. We distilled its findings into ten cards, each an evidence-based direction a design can aim for.

leversTeams chose aspirations such as “using positive feedback and social comparison to build self-efficacy” and treated them as concrete levers, not slogans.
vocabularySPA gave them words for situations: one group linked feeling useless after retirement to self-value and self-efficacy; another read the sewing-machine story through agency and decision-making.

a workshop at IndiaHCI 2025

Ten HCI practitioners spent 90 minutes with the materials at IndiaHCI 2025: an orientation on aging in India and SPA, individual use of the tool, group work with the two card sets, and small-team ideation of services, spaces and technologies. They also questioned the premise.

IndiaHCI 2025 workshop programme

existing practiceMany older adults already have spiritual practices and communities, such as online satsang groups that work like “therapy”. What would an AI tool add for them?
relianceSome older adults are “very averse to reading and writing”, and some people already talk to an AI every night, a sign of possible dependency.
listeningSome grandparents “do not want to answer what you ask, they just want to speak what they want to say.”

vi.

what practitioners designed

In small teams, practitioners combined the stories with aspirations and sketched concepts. They were varied, but each was grounded in SPA concerns and in Indian social and spiritual life.

speak or askA dual-mode support system where older adults can speak freely or ask for concrete suggestions, with nostalgia-based experiences such as revisiting familiar places.
be the supportVolunteering to “be the support you do not have”, as a response to loneliness.
identityCommunity activities that affirm identity, instead of a single app.
belongingChanges to the home, support across generations, and taking part in satsang or group activities, to build confidence and belonging.

vii.

back to older adults

We turned six of the practitioners’ ideas into illustrated concept probes and discussed them with 12 older adults in India. They chose the concepts that mattered to them, said where the concepts matched their lives, and changed them. The analysis is in progress.

materializing self-perceptions of aging for design

SPA design materials