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Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies aim at supporting elderly and disabled people in their environment, with affordable, easy to use and meaningful ICT tools. Given the complexity of AAL, software platforms are needed to abstract and reuse typical functionalities. To this purpose, the universAAL project was established to create an open platform that provides a standardized approach making it technically feasible and economically viable to develop AAL solutions. In order to make AAL technologies widely accepted, high quality must be guaranteed, but measuring quality in AAL is difficult because of the variety of stakeholders, the wide set of needs addressed and the heterogeneity of the employed technologies. This paper proposes a methodological framework for evaluating AAL solutions with the aim of prioritizing evaluation needs, customizing assessment techniques and producing value for the project. The framework is based on empirical methods and on scientific-like theory building mixed with the standard ISO/IEC 25000 for software quality. It can be applied for both technical and non-technical (end-user) evaluations. To support the framework, the results of its application in universAAL are shown, i.e., how it was used at different stages of the project for assessing the results, for taking decisions and for building scientific knowledge.

This article presents a novel set of ten play scenarios for robot-assisted play for children with special needs. This set of scenarios is one of the key outcomes of the IROMEC project that investigated how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents etc.). The target user groups in the project were children with Mild Mental Retardation,1 children with Severe Motor Impairment and children with Autism. The play scenarios were developed against specific educational and therapeutic objectives that were discussed with panels of experts (teachers therapists parents) in various countries, during several user panel meetings for each of the above mentioned target user groups. These objectives were classified with reference to the ICF-CY, the International Classification of Functioning – version for Children and Youth. The article presents a detailed description of the play scenarios, each with its relevant educational and therapeutic objectives in five key developmental areas (i.e. sensory development, communication and interaction, Cognitive development, motor development and social and emotional development). While the play scenarios described in this paper originally were developed for and tested with the above user groups and with the IROMEC robot, the play scenarios can potentially be applied to other user groups and to a wide range of other applications involving human-robot interaction using different robotic toys. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive technology; play scenarios; autism; mild mental retardation; sever motor impairment; assisted play

To cope with the upcoming demographic change, economic efforts in the European Union are undertaken to promote activities in research and development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions. As a result, a large variety of AAL products will be available in the next years. Only very few of these products are comprehensively evaluated regarding different aspects of quality of life in the target population. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of AAL on quality of life, health and technology acceptance of people at advanced age living in assisted living homes providing them the ModuLAAr Ambient Assisted Living system. A treatment group of adults aged 60 years and older will be recruited within the participating assisted living homes. At baseline, the participating volunteers will report on quality of life, subjective health and sociodemographic conditions. After system installation, prospective follow-up (1, 4, 12 and 18 months) with additional reporting on technology acceptance and usability of the system will be conducted. Mixed methods data collection, linking quantitative data to interview-gathered qualitative data will be applied. Primary outcome measure will be the change in quality of life and subjective health across study duration. As there is currently very little evidence that AAL solutions can contribute to improved health and the particular dimensions of quality of life in elderly persons, there is a need to assess these technologies and services more carefully. This field trial seeks to investigate the most relevant aspects connected to advanced information and communication technologies and their impact on daily life of residents in assisted living conditions. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02130102 .