Designing for Inclusive Experiences: Investigating Opportunities for Supporting Older Adults in Community-based Social Programs

Community-based social programs, such as interest groups and outings, provide valuable ways for older adults to maintain social connectedness. To understand how technology can be designed to support older adults in such programs, we conducted a four-month field study with a local community centre, involving: (1) observations of social program sessions, (2) interviews with staff, and (3) co-design workshops with staff and program participants. We found that staff used technologies in a situated way to make social programs more inclusive for older adults. Technology promoted incidental social interactions and group learning, but also excluded participants from some activities. Participants believed that future technologies to support community-based social programs should be designed to enable efficient communication, promote flexible interactions, and maintain the flow of social activities. We argue that technology interventions in this setting should not become the focus of an activity but instead support social interactions triggered by existing activities.


INTRODUCTION
Community-based social programs, such as digital literacy sessions, exercise classes, and interest groups, are important social outlets for many older adults living independently [18,71].These programs provide diverse opportunities for people to stay socially connected with others, including building new friendships, obtaining social support, and fostering a sense of belonging through participation in group activities [18,42,46].These social connections are vital to help people maintain mental and physical health in later life, and prevent them from experiencing social isolation and feelings of loneliness [17,42,46].
These protective efects have attracted the attention of HCI and CSCW researchers who have explored how technology interventions can support independently-living older adults to participate in community-based group activities.Such studies focus on moving from the defcit model of alleviating social isolation to enriching and empowering social connectedness among older adults [60,69,79].HCI research on this topic has ranged from supporting older adults' engagement in specifc group activities [3,34,39,76], to examining how technology can be designed to promote older adults' participation in the local community [41].This prior work has identifed crucial values and technology design considerations to promote the involvement of older adults in community-based activities, such as fostering a sense of belonging [34], promoting the sharing of expertise [3], and facilitating information sharing among program participants [41].However, more research is needed to improve the design of technologies for enabling older adults' involvement in community-based social programs from the perspectives of program participants and staf responsible for running these programs.
In addition to investigating older adults' experiences, Xing et al. [73] interviewed staf members from multiple community-based organizations to understand how they used technology to continue running social programs for older adults online during COVID-19 restrictions.They argued that community organizations and the people who work there were important stakeholders to support the social connectedness of older adults in community-based social programs, and they should be included when designing technology for supporting older adults in these programs.This work reinforces the design concept of 'turning to community, ' that is, that technology should be designed to meet the situated needs of older adults and the communities to which they belong [59].However, prior research has rarely examined the in-situ role of technology in social programs involving older adults, staf members, as well as the social, physical and community environments in which the programs are delivered.
Motivated by this, we conducted a four-month feld study at a local community centre that ofers social programs for older adults in a metropolitan region of Australia.We used ethnographic observations, interviews, and co-design workshops with staf and older adults to explore the following research questions: • RQ1.How is technology being used to support older adults in community-based social programs?• RQ2.What are the key considerations when designing technologies to support the social connectedness of older adults in community-based social programs?
Our ethnographic observations suggest that staf used technologies in a situated way to make social programs more inclusive for older adults.This included communicating program information based on participants' varying technology preferences, and naturally integrating technology into social programs to increase participants' digital literacy.However, the use of technology impacted group dynamics in social programs.We found that while technology prompted some incidental social interactions and group learning activities during program delivery, it also excluded some participants from participating in social activities.Following the observations and interviews, we conducted two rounds of co-design workshops with staf and older adult program participants (one staf member and nine older adults).The workshops aimed to understand participants' views on social connectedness and their preferences for designing technology to support older adults in community-based social programs in the future.Participants saw three opportunities: simplifying interaction processes to improve communication efciency, promoting fexible ways for people to interact with technology, and ensuring the continuity of the social contexts for program delivery.
Our work makes three contributions to the HCI literature.First, we provide a nuanced understanding of how technology is being used to support older adults in community-based social programs.This extends the prior literature [41,73] by adding the perspective of situated technology usage in community contexts, and exploring its impacts on group dynamics.Second, we identify three key preferences for designing technology to support older adults in community-based social programs from the perspectives of staf members and older adult program participants.Third, we contribute a three-layered framework for informing the design of technology to foster inclusive social program experiences for older adults.We argue that rather than developing new programs centred around technology, future technology designs should promote social interactions embedded in existing program activities.Such technology should be designed and deployed in ways that do not disrupt the social contexts of these activities while aiming to improve the inclusiveness of community-based social programs for older adults.

RELATED WORK
Our study builds on HCI research about technology interventions to support social connectedness among older adults, and the importance of promoting older adults' participation in community-based social programs.

Technology to Support Social Connectedness in Later Life
Social connectedness is an essential human need [20], and can bring numerous benefts to older adults' health and wellbeing [5].Staying socially connected can improve older adults' life satisfaction [57], prolong independence and inclusion in community life [52], and help achieve active ageing [4].However, many older adults face a decline in social connectedness as a result of life course changes, including reduced health and mobility conditions, retirement, and the loss of intimate relationships [16,67].These changes could further lead to social isolation and feelings of loneliness in later life [29], which are associated with a variety of detrimental health conditions [66] such as cognitive decline [54], heart disease [21], and early mortality [64].With these issues in mind, prior work in HCI has considered digital technology as a promising way to enhance the social connectedness of many community dwelling older adults [15,36].Studies have shown that information and communication technologies (ICTs) enable older adults to maintain existing social connections with their family and friends [13,35].Social media platforms such as Facebook have been used by older adults for social connectedness, especially with younger family members [31,32].Other work has explored bespoke technology interventions to enhance inter-generational relationships [44,45,68].For instance, Lindley [45] developed a touch-screen based design prototype, Wayve, to be used at home to enable the exchanging of photos, text messages, handwritten notes and drawings among older adults and their grandchildren.They suggested that the sharing of handwritten notes and drawings could facilitate creative and playful interactions for inter-generational connections.Similarly, Wallbaum et al. [68] designed a tangible device called StoryBox to facilitate the sharing of photos and recordings between grandparents and grandchildren, which enriched the inter-generational storytelling experiences through asynchronous communication.
In contrast to the studies that focused on strengthening existing social connections, another strand of HCI research explores the possibilities of using digital technology to assist older adults in building new social relationships.For example, Gaver et al. [24] implemented a movable photograph display called Photostroller in an aged care home, which promoted new communications among residents through playful discussions around the displayed photos.Similarly, Waycott et al. [70] investigated the use of a information and photo sharing application, Enmesh, among isolated older adults who did not know each other before the study.Their study demonstrated that Enmesh enabled new social connections within small peer communities through the creation and sharing of digital content.These studies demonstrate the signifcance of using visual elements such as photographs to facilitate reciprocal and playful social connections among older adults.More recent research has explored how emerging technologies, such as social virtual reality (VR) [7][8][9] and video conferencing platforms [62,77,78] could connect older adults who live independently over geographical distance, enabling them to participate in meaningful social activities remotely.
While these studies have explored the potential of technology interventions to support social connectedness among older adults, fewer studies have involved other important stakeholders, such as community-based organizations and staf, in understanding the use of technology to support community-based social programs for older adults.Given the essential role that these programs can play in supporting older adults' social connectedness [1,18,73], our study aimed to involve staf members and older adults to understand how technology could be designed to better support older adults in community-based social programs.

Supporting the Participation of Older Adults in Community-based Social Programs
Participation in community-based social programs is often one of the most important ways for independently living older adults to achieve social connectedness [1,71].These programs are usually run by organizations such as local councils, public libraries, community centres, or established social groups to support the social lives of many people through a variety of group activities [42,46,63,73].Examples include book clubs, crafting groups, card games, and dancing and exercise classes [46].Engaging in these activities enables older adults to build friendships and social support networks within the community [1,18,23,42].These benefts contribute to helping older adults maintain mental and physical wellbeing [17,42,46].Given this, HCI researchers have explored ways to support independently living older adults to better participate in social programs.Much of this work has involved older adults in making and creative activities [3,33,34,39], with a focus on empowering their experiences, knowledge, and values in technology design and production [60,69,70].For example, Anderson and Vyas [3] conducted a co-design study with 13 older adults who attended an Australian 'Men's Shed' club, which is a type of community group where men can socialize, learn and share skills, and build craft work.Through the deployment of a card-based probe, Anderson and Vyas found that introducing novel concepts during co-designing processes prompted participants to learn more about each other's previously hidden expertise, which could help to strengthen their making community.Similarly, Kalma et al. [34] conducted a mixed methods study with older adults in two crafting communities.They found that a sense of belonging, creativity and the quality of crafting work were important values that could inform the design of technology for craft communities.Lazar et al. [39] studied the formation of an older adult-led makerspace using ethnographic approaches.They found that while technology in makerspaces could encourage more participants to engage with others and keep up with technical changes, the technology must frst be appealing enough to generate interest in its use.
Researchers have also explored the role of technology in supporting older adults participating in volunteering activities [38,76], as well as their general involvement in community life [41,73,77].
For instance, Yuan and Yarosh [76] conducted observations and interviews with older adults and teachers in an inter-generational mentoring program with primary school students.They argued that in addition to lowering the logistic and knowledge barriers of older adults to conducting mentoring activities, technology should provide opportunities to foster inter-generational relationships beyond the classroom through asynchronous communication.Instead of studying older adults' engagement in a particular activity, Lee et al. [41] sought to understand how ICTs could promote older adults' participation in community centres.Their ethnographic research highlighted the role of social networking platforms in supporting older adults' community involvement by promoting information sharing in 'activity circles' [41] (p.161), where a group of older adults connected with each other based on their common interests and activities.
Collectively, these studies demonstrate promising ways in which technology could be used to support older adults in communitybased social programs and group activities, especially those involving collaborative work among participants.However, there has been little research on how technology can be used by community organizations to support older adults in less creative activities, such as social groups, digital literacy classes, and gentle exercises.These programs may have diferent needs and opportunities for technology use compared to the activities studied in the literature to date.Considering the importance of these programs for the social connectedness of older adults [18,43], we sought to involve staf members and older adults to understand how technology can be used in these community-based social programs, with a focus on in-situ technology usage in community settings, and its impact on group dynamics.

METHODS
We conducted a four-month feld study at an Australian community centre using ethnographic [40] and co-design approaches [28].Our goal was to understand how the organization currently used technology to support the older adults in its social programs, and to generate technology design considerations to support the social connectedness of older adults through community-based social programs in the future.The study was undertaken in three phases between March and July 2023, including initial site visits (Phase One), observations of social programs and staf interviews (Phase Two), and two rounds of co-design workshops (Phase Three).Figure 1 outlines the research activities and study timeline for each phase.
The study was approved by our institutional ethics committee.We use pseudonyms when referring to the local community centre and participants to protect their anonymity.Ethical considerations are discussed in Section 3.2 after we detail the research context.

Research Context
3.1.1Study Site.We worked with a local community centre, Connecting Well (a pseudonym), as our research partner through purposive sampling [22].We frst contacted several community-based organizations that provide social programs for older adults, and Connecting Well expressed an interest in participating in the research.We then set up an online Zoom meeting with Connecting  Well's manager to discuss the study design and associated commitments, which led to our partnership.
Connecting Well is a not-for-proft organization located in a metropolitan suburb of Melbourne, Australia.The suburb has approximately 15000 residents (51.3% female and 48.7% male) [55].According to the 2021 Australian Census [55], the median age of residents in the suburb is 31 years old, but 11.7% are 60 years old and above.The median weekly income per household is $1718 AUD, which is slightly lower than the national median ($1,746 AUD) [55].Among residents aged 15 and over, 52.7% have a bachelor's degree or higher.Like many areas of Melbourne, the suburb is ethnically diverse.48.8% of residents were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 66.9%.Other countries of birth include China (7.6%), Vietnam (2.8%), India (2.7%), Malaysia (2.7%), and England (2.3%) [55].
Connecting Well has been running for 40 years and receives government funding and philanthropic support to maintain its operations.The organization is managed by a team of 11 paid staf members and several volunteers.All staf members work part time based on the number of hours allocated in the fnancial budget.
According to Connecting Well's website, their mission is to provide an assortment of programs based on the needs of their clients.This includes programs for all age groups, and those specifcally catered for people aged 60 and above, such as Older Adults Exercise classes.The focus of these programs is to deliver an inclusive agenda that promotes a sense of belonging in the community, reduces social isolation, and enhances the overall wellbeing of the residents.
3.1.2Types of Social Programs Ofered.Connecting Well provides diverse programs for its residents.These include educational sessions (e.g., digital literacy classes and language courses), interest groups (e.g., music clubs and community choir), social groups and outings (e.g., morning tea sessions and bus trips), and exercisebased activities (e.g., exercise classes and Pilates).The class size of these programs is fexible and usually depends on the actual needs of Connecting Well's clients.The number of people in social groups and educational classes is usually between four to eight, while exercise classes and community choir sessions usually have 12 to 20 clients.The programs are run to coincide with school terms, with class frequencies ranging from weekly to monthly based on demand.The duration of each session lasts between one and three hours.
Connecting Well holds educational and social programs in its activity room, which is equipped with a large digital display and is furnished with tables, chairs and shelves (Figure 2).Laptops are also provided by Connecting Well for their clients to join digital literacy classes.Exercise and community choir sessions are held in larger venues outside of Connecting Well due to the need for large spaces.These venues are also equipped with comfortable chairs.

Ethical Considerations
The study procedures received approval from our institutional ethics committee.All members of the research team have experience conducting qualitative studies with older adults and had received ethics training.All participants read an information sheet at the beginning of each research activity (observations, staf interviews, and co-design workshops), and signed consent forms.
Ethical issues were carefully considered for observation and codesign workshop sessions.The frst author observed entire sessions as a peripheral participant to avoid disrupting the programs [2,51].This enabled us to interact with program participants and gain an understanding of the setting, and how digital technologies were used, without being a core participant of the group or intervening in the activities [2].We recorded social interactions that occurred during programs in feld notes, but did not record participants' personal information, such as emails and home addresses mentioned during their conversations.
Photos were taken during some of observations to support later analysis.To uphold participants' anonymity, we did not photograph participants' faces and only took photos of the social activities and artefacts created during observations and co-design workshops.Participants could put green stickers we had prepared to their chests to indicate their consent to be recorded.All participants consented to be photographed in this study.
To ensure inclusiveness, we held the workshops at Connecting Well.This reduced participants' commuting requirements whilst allowing them to engage in research activities in an environment that they were familiar with [28].We emailed a copy of the workshop procedure to the director of Connecting Well before each session.This was to ensure that the workshop activities could be conducted in accordance with the organizational regulations.

Participants and Recruitment
We invited staf members from Connecting Well and older adult program participants to take part in our research.In total, 35 people (seven staf members and 28 older adult program participants) consented to be observed by the researcher while participating in social programs.Following this, 15 people (six staf members and 9 older adults) agreed to participate in further research activities including interviews and co-design workshops.Not all 28 program participants were available to participate in further activities due to personal interests, time conficts, or health reasons.As we mainly discuss data collected from participants who took part in multiple research activities in this paper, we omit the demographic information of participants who only consented to the observations.

Staf Members.
We recruited six staf members (two men, four women) based on the recommendation of Connecting Well.They were nominated either because the social programs for which they were responsible often included older adults, or because they had experience of working with older adults at Connecting Well.Their ages ranged from 36 to 71 years (mean = 49.7,SD = 12.3).As shown in Table 1, they were all experienced in running or supporting programs that are either specifcally designed for older adults, or have many older adults as program participants.Most of them had worked at Connecting Well between four months and two years, whereas one staf member (Xianna) has been with Connecting Well for ten years as a board member.They all have some confdence in using digital technology.

Older
Adults.We also recruited nine older adults (two men, seven women) as program participants.Inclusion criteria were: any older adult who was interested in participating in any phase of this study, was involved in Connecting Well's social programs, and was over the Australian retirement age (67 years) [26].
As shown in Table 2, the ages of older adult program participants ranged from 76 to 88 years (mean = 74.3,SD = 7.4).One participant (Adeline) preferred not to disclose her exact age but said she was around 70 years old.All participants listed in Table 2 consented to be observed by the researcher while participating in social programs, and attended at least one round of co-design workshops.Participants' confdence levels in using digital technologies varied from not at all confdent to somewhat confdent.The social programs each participant attended at Connecting Well are also listed in Table 2.
Each participant received a $20 AUD digital gift voucher for their participation in each type of research activity (i.e., observations, interviews, and co-design workshops), adding up to a maximum of $60 AUD per person.

Data Collection
3.4.1 Phase One: Initial Site Visits.Our study began with a series of visits to Connecting Well spread over one week to obtain an initial understanding of the organizational context.We introduced the research team and objectives to staf members and received suggestions about which social programs to observe.We also conducted an interview with Yelena, the Communication Ofcer from Connecting Well.The purpose of this interview was to gain a preliminary understanding of the current social programs and their facilitators in preparation for subsequent research activities.The initial site visits lasted around four hours, including the one-hour interview.We wrote feld notes to record information about the  social programs involving older adults and the facilitators' experi-of six social programs, and interviewed fve program facilitators to ences of working with older adults, which we used to inform the understand more about the social interactions that occurred during design of the observation template and interview questions for the these programs, and how technology was used within this context.upcoming research activities.
Table 3 provides a summary of the observed social programs.Field notes were taken during each session based on a predetermined semi-structured template, including entries such as "Ob-3.4.2 Phase Two: Observations and Staf Interviews.After the initial served social interactions", "Technology usage", and "Encountered site visits, we conducted observations of nine individual sessions struggles." We also asked participants follow-up questions after the observation when clarifcation or further inquiry was needed.The observation duration for each session ranged from 60 to 160 minutes, and the total observation time was around 18 hours across the nine sessions.After completing the frst observation of each social program session, we conducted interviews with the staf member who facilitated the observed session.We conducted fve such interviews in total.All interviews were one-to-one and were conducted either online via Zoom or in-person at Connecting Well.The interviews followed a semi-structured protocol based on the observation refections.During the interviews, we asked questions about the basic information of facilitated programs, the social interactions that normally occurred, and the facilitator's opinions about the future technology usage for these programs.Example questions included: "What challenges (if any) did you face when running social programs for older adults?","How do you usually use digital technologies in your social program delivery?", and "From your perspective, what technologies would help you to enhance the social connections with older participants through social programs in the future?".We collected the interview data either by making audio recordings (four interviews) or taking notes (one interview), depending on the preference of the participant.The interviews varied from 28 to 46 minutes (mean = 40.6),with a total duration of 3.4 hours.

3.4.3
Phase Three: Co-design Workshops.After completing the frst 10 weeks of feld observations and staf interviews, we conducted two rounds of co-design workshops with staf members and older adult participants to further probe their views on social connectedness and technology design preferences for supporting social programs.The frst round involved two separate workshop sessions, each with fve participants, and the second round involved one session with six participants.Four participants did not attend the second round due to time constraints or short-term illness.All workshops were conducted in-person at the activity room of Connecting Well.
The workshops were inspired by Harrington et al. 's research on community-based design workshops with older adults [28], and the diverse engagement considerations for supporting co-design experiences proposed by Chivukula et al. [14].For the frst round of workshops, we aimed to understand what aspects of social connectedness were important to participants, and what were the main challenges participants encountered when trying to achieve these while participating in social programs.Each workshop started with a small icebreaker activity for participants to become acquainted and to create a relaxed environment.We then asked participants to brainstorm individually about what kinds of social interactions were important to them, what challenges they encountered while trying to achieve these through social programs, and what technologies they had used to overcome these challenges.Participants wrote down their thoughts on sticky notes.We provided prompts to help participants explore their thoughts during this activity [14].These included word cards of diferent social interactions (e.g., meet new people, reminiscing, and share information), pictures of social programs run by Connecting Well (e.g., Seniors Morning Tea, Digital Classes, and Bus Trips), and labels of digital technologies (e.g., emails, SMSs, and laptops).After this, we invited the whole group to discuss the content of the sticky notes, and created an afnity diagram depicting their thoughts on the relationships between technologies and diferent types of social connectedness.
In the second workshop, we aimed to generate and visualize design concepts based on the benefts and challenges that participants discussed in the previous workshops.We frst briefy introduced some digital technologies to help participants explore the diverse technology options.This was achieved by presenting some slides of general ICTs such as social media and email, and playing videos of some emerging technologies such as tangible interfaces (e.g., Tovertafel Table [25], Reactable [72]), and augmented reality (AR)).We also used Meta Quest 2 to demonstrate some potential uses of virtual reality (VR), such as conducting a virtual city walk using YouTube 360 videos.
Following this, we provided participants with six scenarios to generate design concepts.Each scenario contained one type of challenge about social programs that built on the research activities of the frst and second phases of this study.(All scenarios are included in the Appendix.)Participants were asked to work in pairs to choose one or two scenarios and generate technology-related solutions.This included brainstorming for design concepts, prototyping, and storyboard development.Participants worked in three groups to come up with design solutions based on four scenarios: improving communication with older adult program participants about timesensitive program delivery information (e.g., last minute changes to the time and locations of program delivery); supporting group learning in digital classes; inviting a friend to join a bus trip over a distance; and sharing a video with others in a morning tea session.
We encouraged participants to generate two types of technologyrelated solutions for each scenario: one that they thought could be realized using existing technology or in the near future (fve to ten years), and one that was any idea they could think of, even if it could not be realized soon.This use of context-based scenarios with speculative design questions contributed to helping participants bridge their design ideas from current technology use practices to technology use to support social programs in the future [6].As a result, participants created eight storyboards.Each storyboard consisted of six frames in which participants illustrated how their technology ideas would address the chosen scenario and wrote a description in the text feld below each frame.We invited each pair of participants to present their ideas to the group.We then facilitated a whole group discussion around the presented storyboards and ideas.The frst round of workshops lasted 160 minutes on average, while the fnal workshop took about 180 minutes.We used voice recorders and smartphones to record the workshop discussions and take pictures of the outcomes.

Data Analysis
Our data included written feld notes, audio recordings of interviews, photos from observations and workshops, as well as paraphernalia collected from Connecting Well's premises, such as program fyers.
We frst standardized all the data into text format by transcribing the audio recordings into text.For the paraphernalia, we extracted information relevant to social programs and consolidated it into feld notes.For example, we took pictures of the program fyers and newsletters, and copied the relevant texts, such as program overviews into feld notes.This led to a total of 71 pages of interview transcriptions and 39 pages of feld notes.
We used open and axial coding techniques from grounded theory methodology [65] to make sense of and interpret the data.The frst author read through the entire dataset and conducted two rounds of open coding at the sentence level to generate initial codes that related to the research questions.Some example codes were "Tension between group discussions and small screen", and "Technology design should keep everyone engaged in group activities." Alongside the open coding, the frst author wrote short memos to record refections and interpretations to inform the subsequent axial coding process.This included ideas such as the author's impression that the use of technology in social programs was noticeably subtle, and the importance that participants placed on social interactions.
The frst author then axially coded the initial codes with raw data to identify relationships among them, and to create candidate categories that could refect these related codes.Analytical memos with category diagrams were created to identify connections among core codes and categories.These candidate categories were then iteratively discussed and reviewed by the research team to ensure their relevance to this study.Some sample categories were "situated use of technology to enhance the inclusiveness of social programs, " and "technology impacted group dynamics during program delivery."After two rounds of axial coding with research team discussions, we fnally generated categories that refected the interpretation of the whole dataset.

FINDINGS
We begin by providing an overview of program delivery practices at Connecting Well, and then present the fndings of this study.Our observations and interviews revealed that staf used technologies in a situated way in response to requirements that emerged during the organization and running of the programs.We further observed the impacts of technology on group dynamics in social programs, fnding that while technology promoted some incidental social interactions and group learning activities during program delivery, it could also exclude some participants from participating in social activities.Finally, the co-design workshops revealed that when designing future technologies to support social programs in community organizations, participants preferred to simplify interactions to improve communication efciency; promote fexible ways for people to interact with the technology; and not disrupt the social environment for program delivery.
To denote the data collected from diferent research activities, we use diferent notations: "Obs" with numbers representing feld notes taken during observation sessions; "I" with numbers to refer to interview quotes; and "W" with numbers for quotes from co-design workshop discussions.

Overview of Observed Program Delivery Practices at Connecting Well
We observed four types of social programs at Connecting Well, including educational sessions (Digital Essentials and Making Your Phone Work for You), social groups (Men's Afternoon Tea and Seniors Morning Tea), exercise classes (Older Adults Exercise), and interest groups (Community Choir).All of these sessions were facilitated by staf members except Seniors Morning Tea sessionsin this program, participants had known each other for a long time, and did not need staf to facilitate conversations.In contrast, the Men's Afternoon Tea sessions were relatively new and the facilitator was vital for helping newcomers join the group and keeping the conversations going.Many participants took part in multiple programs at Connecting Well.We found that although the structure of each program varied, the typical fow of each session we observed was as follows: at the start of the session, staf usually greeted program participants and introduced new members to the group.They would then lead the activity according to the agenda, with breaks and social activities scheduled at appropriate times.Before the end of the session, staf debriefed participants and reminded them of the arrangements for the next session.In addition, staf usually prepared refreshments based on participants' preferences, which helped to create a relaxed and friendly social environment.It is worth noting that socialization was a very important part of the program fow in all observation sessions.When social interactions occurred, staf usually did not interrupt them and further facilitated these interactions among participants.
As shown in Table 3, the extent to which technology was used varied in diferent programs.We observed that participants used technology actively in digital literacy classes and community choir sessions.This included the use of a large display in the activity room, personal devices such as a digital piano, laptops, smartphones, and digital resources in online platforms.In social groups and exercise classes, technology was used occasionally by participants on an as-needed basis, which often involved the use of smartphones.

Situated Use of Technology to Enhance the Inclusiveness of Social Programs
During the frst two phases of our study, we observed that while technology usage varied in diferent programs, staf members used technology in a situated way to maximize the inclusiveness of social programs for older adults.Often, rather than directly facilitating technology-based activities, staf used technology in a more emergent way to meet requirements as they occurred during the program delivery.

Conveying Program Information
Based on Participants' Varying Technology Preferences.We found that conveying timely and accurate program information to program participants was essential for successfully involving them in social programs.To achieve this, staf needed to select the appropriate medium for diferent kinds of information sharing, including distribution of curriculum materials, notifcation of changes in the schedule, and advertisements about the program.
Choosing the appropriate medium often depended on the shared preferences for technology use among participants in diferent groups.Staf often needed to select diferent digital tools to distribute program materials to participants from diferent social programs.For example, Urena, the leader of Community Choir, usually distributed choir songs via a Google Drive folder, email, or a Facebook page to ensure that the program participants could access and continue practicing these songs as needed outside of the choir sessions.This reveals one of the coordination roles that technology could play in supporting social programs, which is the distribution of program resources to meet participants' needs of continuing doing activities outside of the sessions.
In addition, Urena explained in a subsequent interview that Google Drive worked best with this choir group, as it was easy to learn for this group and not many of the older adult participants were on digital music platforms: I05 -Urena: "When I frst introduced it [Google Drive], they were all a bit like, what is this?This is too much.But I was like, here's the direct link.If you click on this, here's all the songs that we're doing.When they go into it, they can see the diferent tracks and then they can practise with those tracks at home.They really appreciate that.Some of the younger ones have put them into playlists on Spotify, but for most of them they just go and click into the Google Drive and that's been really successful." However, Valerie, the facilitator of digital literacy classes, decided to use email to share class workbooks with the program participants, as most of the older adults in this program found email comfortable to use.These examples suggest that in social program settings, even something as seemingly simple as distributing curriculum materials requires careful consideration by staf members, based on their knowledge of the participants.
To ensure that the registered older adult participants could attend scheduled programs, staf also needed to make sure that schedule updates were successfully communicated to them in a timely manner.Yelena, the Communication Ofcer, noted that she usually chose diferent platforms depending on the type of messages she needed to convey.She added that this selection was based on her knowledge of the communication preferences and digital literacy of older adult program participants.For example, when sending information that did not require participants' responses such as the program timetable, she usually sent it through email.However, when time-sensitive information was required, such as reminders and impromptu location changes, she tended to text or call participants directly.
Moreover, staf mentioned the need to widely advertise programs to the community to increase the overall inclusiveness of social programs, particularly to include some older adults who might be less used to using digital technology.Staf participants stated that they used various digital means for this advertisement, including the Connecting Well website, Facebook pages, Instagram posts, and digital program fyers.However, for older adults in Connecting Well, these digital means, especially social media, were limited for advertising.Traditional communication technology, such as email, a digital screen in Connecting Well's foyer, and non-digital means, such as community newspapers, program fyers, and word of mouth worked better in this case.They were more aligned with the living experiences and technology preferences of older adults in the Connecting Well community.
These examples demonstrate that program participants' technology preferences and varying digital literacy were important considerations when choosing information sharing technology to support program delivery.After all, as mentioned by Zavier, the director of Connecting Well, "there's no real point in putting something where the [older] people who are on that channel are not gonna respond."

Technology Was Naturally Integrated into Social Programs to
Increase Participants' Digital Literacy.Some staf frmly believed that older adults needed digital skills to maintain and expend their social connectedness.However, older adult program participants at Connecting Well often lacked a certain level of digital literacy.Facing this challenge, staf endeavoured to artfully provide participants with opportunities to be exposed to and use technology in social programs, even for programs that did not usually involve technology.
Both staf members and older adult program participants acknowledged the importance of digital literacy for older adults, particularly in helping them keep up with the evolving world.Walter, the Education Coordinator at Connecting Well, noted that people who have less digital literacy might even become "disadvantaged" in modern life.Therefore, digital skills are essential "life skills" for older adults: I02 -Walter: "Because so many of these digital skills are now life skills, like you can't pay a lot of bills now unless you have an email and use the Internet, etc.I think they're (digital skills) absolutely necessary these days because anyone who is digitally unaware or unable to move in the digital world is very disadvantaged, even if they are advantaged in other ways in terms of the day-to-day of life." Given this, staf subtly incorporated technology into some social programs to increase older adults' digital literacy.For instance, we observed that Urena introduced participants to the choir's Facebook page during a Community Choir session: Obs07 -Community Choir: In the middle of this session, Urena used her iPad to play a video of another choir to program participants, and people enjoyed watching it.This made some participants curious to know how to access the video by themselves.Therefore, when asked where to fnd the video, she did a detailed walk-through on her iPad to show program participants how to navigate the Facebook page.Several participants tried to follow this using their phones.Under Urena's thoughtful facilitation, learning about technology became a natural byproduct of program participants' social activities during the session, rather than an abrupt disturbance to the Choir activity.
Similarly, we observed that some program participants learned more about Uber when the program facilitator, Zavier, tried to help one participant call a taxi during a Men's Afternoon Tea session.In this case, the use of technology did not interrupt the normal fow of social programs, and technology knowledge was naturally passed on to the program participants by the facilitators as and when required.These examples demonstrate that with the appropriate guidance from staf members, older adult program participants could gain greater exposure to the digital world by participating in social programs other than just digital literacy classes.
Notably, Walter, who ran the digital literacy classes, believed that rather than just teaching people to use technology in certain social programs, such as digital literacy classes, it would be better to integrate technology into the life of the community.This would enable people to learn and practice digital skills while attending any of Connecting Well's social programs, and help them to be more involved in the community while expanding their digital lives.

Technology Impacted Group Dynamics During Program Delivery
Some uses of technology appeared to afect group dynamics during the program sessions.While technology facilitated ad-hoc social interactions in some cases, it also prevented some participants from joining group activities in other cases.

Technology Promoted Incidental Social Interactions and Group
Learning Activities.We found that older adult program participants' spontaneous use of technology promoted some incidental social interactions that occurred during program delivery, particularly when program participants wanted to fnd and share some information relevant to their conversations.For example, during a Men's Afternoon Tea session, we observed that when the group was discussing bakeries, they could not remember the address of a particular bakery that had been open for a long time.At this point, Dylan (a program participant) searched for the address on his smartphone and then read the bakery's address out loud, and participants continued their discussions and recalled more about this bakery.
Similarly, during Seniors Morning Tea sessions, participants occasionally used their smartphones to share photos relevant to the current conversations, such as family photos and a picture of a jigsaw table.Since their smartphones had relatively small screens, program participants usually passed their phones around the table to involve more people in the conversation.These additional visual elements often promoted more discussions within the group and further provoked more people to show similar photos to others.These examples further imply a potential role for technology in social groups, which is in enabling ad-hoc multi-media information sharing to stimulate group social interactions.
In some cases, discussions centred on technologies and shared challenges participants had encountered.That is, when one person talked about the issues they had faced, even outside the digital literacy classes, this often triggered a broader discussion among the group: Obs02 -Older Adults Exercise: This session was delivered in a very social and conversational way.Participants usually chatted with each other while doing the exercises.During this session, some participants mentioned problems with the use of some digital platforms, such as some government websites and e-commerce platforms, which most of them required a login to use.Subsequently, more people started to talk to the group about the technology issues they had experienced, such as difculties in remembering passwords for diferent platforms.
Such discussions also occurred frequently in digital literacy classes, where most program participants were older adults.We found that these discussions often promoted peer support among participants, which helped them build confdence around using technology: Obs09 -Digital Essentials: One older adult participant had some difculty in fnding a particular URL about online scams.Another older adult who was more techsavvy helped her fnd it in the class workbook and visited the destination website.At the end of this session, participants were talking about how they found it hard to learn technology as older adults, but then they said that this was not for everyone, as they just saw that some older adults could do the technology things well in this class.

Some Participants
Were Excluded from Social Activities.While technology sometimes promoted social interactions, it could also make it challenging for some participants to engage in certain activities during the sessions.For example, in digital literacy classes, facilitators often needed to pause the group teaching to work oneon-one with individuals to solve their specifc issues on diferent devices, which often required them to move back and forth between the podium area and participants' seats.While this helped to address individual issues, it created a lot of waiting time for others.We observed that although participants sometimes engaged in small conversations with their neighbours, many times they simply waited and stared at their screens.This inevitably led to the exclusion of some participants from the group lessons.Valeria, another facilitator of digital literacy classes, reported that some participants even "got irritated" at times with the delays, which was consistent with our observations: Obs03 -Making Your Phone Work for You: Valeria usually tended to provide one-on-one support to solve individual issues during the session.However, there were some issues today that took her longer to resolve.When the waiting time got longer, some participants started to get bored.And one older adult started to keep tapping his fngers on the table after waiting for around ten minutes.
While such long waits can sometimes be problematic, these situations also reveal a technology design opportunity to leverage these waiting times to continue engaging participants in more meaningful social activities during digital literacy classes.
Another common challenge around group dynamics in digital literacy classes was the tension between group learning activities and the small screen of digital devices: Obs08 -Making Your Phone Work for You: Valeria was trying to help Cara understand a problem using her smartphone.At frst, she was standing at the right side of Cara explaining the problem.Then another older adult heard about the conversation and wanted to join, but she mentioned that the screen was too small for her to look at.Valeria then stepped between the older adult and Cara so that they could get a clear view on her phone.
The small size of the screens on personal devices often limited the class learning activities to a smaller group of two to three people, and sometimes prevented others from joining the conversations, as participants often needed to clearly view the screens to understand the actual problem.This demonstrates a need to support multiple participants to join in such small learning activities when needed, relieving them from the constraints of not being able to share content on their personal devices to multiple participants at the same time in a co-located space.
We also noted that some participants might be excluded from information sharing across diferent social programs because they did not use the same platforms as other participants: Obs04 -Seniors Morning Tea: During this session, Freya used her smartphone to show Blair some pictures of the recent bus trip.They had a great conversation about the garden that Freya visited during this trip.Freya mentioned that she wanted to show Blair these photos earlier.However, unlike others who were on WhatsApp, Blair did not use any social media applications, she was not able to share these photos with Blair until today.
In this example, a choice not to use WhatsApp prevented Blair from participating in Freya's photo sharing activities with others from the bus trip.This reinforces our previous fnding in Section 4.2.1 that participants' difering preferences for technology can afect their social connections with others and their participation in community life.Collectively, these examples demonstrate that the uses of technology are interconnected with the social environment in communitybased social programs.While some spontaneous uses of technology by program participants promoted incidental social interactions among social groups, other uses afected group dynamics.This indicates that a delicate balance needs to be achieved when designing technology for community-based social programs.

Design Preferences for Technology Used in Community Context
After spending some time observing social program sessions and interviewing staf members, we conducted two rounds of co-design workshops.These aimed to understand the views of staf and older adult program participants on social connectedness and their preferences for designing and using technology to support communitybased social programs.During the workshop activities, we invited participants to explore existing technologies, and encouraged them to brainstorm technology design ideas in response to six design scenarios (see Appendix).These scenarios were developed based on our observations and staf interviews, with each depicted one type of challenge associated with social program delivery.All participants worked in pairs, and each group selected one or two scenarios.Brief summaries of the selected scenarios are shown in Table 4.
We found that participants tended to come up with futuristic technologies to ofer simple and direct solutions for improving communication efciency, providing fexible interactions, and promoting the continuity of the social context in programs sessions.

Streamlined Interaction Process to Improve Communication
Eficiency.Participants generated diverse ideas about how to better use technology to communicate information about social programs.Among them, we found that participants preferred a streamlined interaction fow with straightforward operations.They felt that this would help to interact with technology, which contributed to increasing the communication efciency among Connecting Well and program participants.
For instance, participants were provided with a scenario of better communicating with older adult program participants about time-sensitive program information.In response, Yelena and Adeline came up with a 'mental telepathic' technology design to send program notifcations to others.They felt their notifcation system could make the communication between Connecting Well and program participants more efcient over a distance: W02 -Yelena & Adeline: "The world will be so advanced that if I want to convey an idea to you, I'll think it in my mind, 'Blair, you should know that today the plan has changed.' And Blair would be sitting in her home, she'll get the idea in her brain that Yelena is saying that the change of plan has happened.So the one idea that is in my brain, will automatically be conveyed to Blair who's sitting in her home." This example further demonstrates a desire to support more direct communication channels between Connecting Well and its program participants.
In addition to improving the efciency of communication, it was equally important that program participants would not miss out on important messages from Connecting Well.Given this, Yelena and Adeline further imagined that these notifcations should be seen directly on the screen by program participants, so that people could notice them more easily.They frst sketched their design as a storyboard, shown in Figure 4. Then they explained the system as follows: W02 -Yelena & Adeline: "So we'll use satellite to convey idea to people in such a way that even if they are not looking at their mobile screens, the mobile will start blinking, the television or the computer screens, they all will start blinking the message.If anybody's even passing by their mobile or television, even if they are not on, the satellite is going to send a message to the screens automatically." Enzo and Dylan, who worked on the scenario of older adult program participants sharing a video with others in a Men's Morning Tea session, also developed an idea about microchip-implanted communication: W02 -Enzo & Dylan: "People have a chip in their brain to receive the video.Sender connects with each chip to send the video, and the receiver views video in head." Their storyboard is shown in Figure 5.They noted that such a straightforward communication method could ensure that everyone in the group would receive the same message, preventing the situation where a message "starts one thing that ends up something else, " such as on some social media (Dylan).

More Flexible Ways for People to Interact With Technology.
However, the preference for streamlined operations did not mean that there should be a single way of interacting with technology.In fact, we found that technologies used in community social programs should support group use in diferent programs by providing fexible interaction options, including voice interactions and tangible interfaces.
For example, Blair and Cara chose a scenario of designing technology to support group learning in digital literacy classes, where the program participants often had varying levels of digital literacy.During brainstorming activities, they generated an idea about getting help from a robot by simply speaking to the technology: W02 -Blair & Cara: "We came up with the thing of having a robot, and we ask the robot to help us.So, [the robot could] ask 'How can I help?' [We could say] 'tell me how to fnd Connecting Well.' 'Follow Woods Street, next door to post ofce.' and that's the end." They explained that they knew very little about technology.They designed it this way because it made them feel like they could get help just as if they were talking to a real person, which is easier and more intuitive for them than using (other) technology.This example suggests that voice interfaces can help reduce barriers to technology use for program participants with relatively low digital literacy, and to engage them more in the activities in digital literacy classes.
Participants also had a fruitful discussion around tangible interfaces based on the video introduction of Reactable [72] during the second workshop.Reactable is a music interface that combines physical objects and multi-touch surfaces to create a collaborative music experience for users to manipulate sound in an intuitive way [72].One program participant, Adeline, commented that such interfaces provided various tactile and visual elements for older adults to enjoy some fun activities through simple interactions.
Moreover, participants suggested that such tabletop design was suitable for group settings, as it was easy to learn and manipulate for many people simultaneously by simply playing with the concrete physical objects.This was important as any extra learning burden might prevent people from engaging in group activities.Some participants added that it would be even better if these technologies could utilize the "fve senses" of sound, hearing, smell, touch and taste to provide multiple interaction options for people (Adeline).

Non-intrusive in the Social Program Environment.
During the frst round of co-design workshops, participants discussed several key benefts they receive from participating in social programs.They considered the social programs in Connecting Well to be an essential outlet for them to obtain social interactions with others.This included meeting with new people, talking with like-minded others, keeping in touch with old friends, doing something accompanied by others, and providing support to each other.
With these social benefts in mind, participants in co-design workshop II expressed the view that new technology for social programs should aim to foster more group social interactions through playful activities among participants, rather than diverting attention to individual interactions with technology.This suggests that technology should be designed to ensure the continuity of social interactions embedded in existing program activities, especially when those activities are face-to-face.
For instance, in workshop II, participants discussed the potential use of VR in social programs, after they watched a brief VR headset demonstration given by the researcher.During the discussion, Enzo highlighted the importance of being able to see real-world social cues during co-located group activities: W02 -Enzo: "I can imagine maybe a lot of people being less comfortable wearing the [VR] goggles, than if they're looking at something on a table and they can see other people's expressions.See that they're enjoying it, rather than being sort of closing [experience]." Yelena, the Communication Ofcer at Connecting Well, emphasized that the use of technology should not prevent participants from being aware of and engaging in group activities, especially when they were face-to-face.
She imagined a tabletop group game with touchable digital components for Seniors Morning Tea sessions.In this game, participants could touch the digital components on the table to get diferent topics as social prompts for conversations: W02 -Yelena: "We might have a game in which we put in ideas, like children, like topics.And they [older adults] select the topic by clicking [on the technology]...they're putting their hands on [the] children [topic], and then they discuss [what] they've experienced with their children.So they choose the idea with their hands, that will involve all of them.And then everyone will have a chance to discuss what that person would like to discuss....and then choosing a next idea.It can be used in that way.Not just the game, but game of ideas, like idea in a gaming way." This game design indicates that technology should support multiple needs of older adult participants in social groups.This includes prompting topics to elicit group conversations, ensuring that each participant can be genuinely engaged in group social activities, providing intuitive human-technology interactions, and enriching the existing group activities in a playful way.
Collectively, participants' ideas suggest that technology should be implemented as an aid to foster group dynamics and enrich social interactions embedded in existing social activities, rather than replacing or compromising them.

DISCUSSION
This study aimed to understand how technology can be used and designed to support older adults in community-based social programs.Through ethnographic approaches, we provide a nuanced understanding of the in-situ use of technology by staf members to support older adults in social programs, and show how staf used technology in subtle ways to enhance the inclusion of older adults in social programs.This extends previous HCI research [41,73] by considering the perspectives of staf who are responsible for organizing and facilitating these programs, the organizational environment, and the social contexts of program delivery.Prior research has focused on social programs for older adults that support specifc collaborative and creative activities [3,34,39].We add to this body of knowledge by examining how technology impacted group dynamics of older adult participants in other programs, particularly in supporting incidental social interactions in social groups and digital literacy classes.
In this section, we discuss the signifcance of understanding the 'program ecology', comprising technological, social, and organizational contexts as part of technology design practice to support older adults in social programs.We then present a three-layered design framework for informing technology interventions to promote inclusive experiences for older adults in community-based social programs.

Understanding the 'Program Ecology' to Inform Technology Design Practices
Collectively, our fndings pinpoint three intertwined factors that contribute to the use of technology in community-based social programs: the technological, social, and organizational contexts for the delivery of each program.Inspired by Cerna and Müller's work on digital ecology [12], we argue that a 'program ecology' is formed by these three factors.Cerna and Müller argued that online participatory design workshops need to be designed to work with the "digital ecologies" of older adults-that is, the range of devices they own, their individual practices and preferences, and the collaborative tools used to support workshop participation.
Expanding this idea, we can see in our fndings evidence of a 'program ecology' comprising technological, social, and organizational considerations.Technological issues include the devices participants own and their level of comfort and familiarity with using new technologies.In our study, staf actively generated knowledge of the varying technology preferences and digital literacy of older adults, and shaped the use of technology based on their interpretations of this knowledge.This technological context may be mutually shaped by older adults and staf members, and varies between groups.Social issues include the interplay between group social norms during program sessions and the use of technology in these sessions.Like Liu et al.'s work on creating enjoyable co-located interactions [47], our study suggests that the spontaneous use of technology promoted some incidental interactions, such as sharing information among co-located program participants, but also negatively afected participants' engagement in certain activities.Lastly, the organizational context includes how the social programs are structured by organizations, the physical environment in which the programs operate, and what organizational resources are available for these programs.Much of this varies from organization to organization, and often involves limited fnancial and human resources for program delivery [73].
HCI researchers argue that designing technology for enjoyable social interactions involves understanding the context in which these interactions occur [47] and the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the communities to which people belong [37,59].Following this, we argue that an understanding of program ecology should be established when designing technology to support older adults in community-based social programs, rather than 'parachuting' technology directly into its use context [53].Researchers can leverage ethnographic and co-design approaches to generate this knowledge, as program ecologies may vary at the individual, group and organization levels.This reinforces the 'turn to community' design concept [59] by incorporating the dynamic needs of older adults, associated stakeholders, and organizations into design process, helping to promote a more sustainable technological intervention [37].In addition, by involving researchers, organizations, and older adults throughout the process, such ethnographic study can create a mutual learning space to explore technology usage in the long term, especially when the technology is new to the organizational contexts [58].

A Three-layered Framework for Designing
Future Technology to Create Inclusive Social Program Experiences for Older Adults Through co-design workshops, we identifed three key preferences for technology designs to support older adults in community-based social programs.While participants created some designs that were very futuristic, the values embodied within them reveal participants' views on opportunities for technological interventions.These include the desire to streamline interaction processes to improve communication efciency, the ability to fexibly interact with technology, and the need to promote the continuity of social contexts embedded in program activities.However, the current uses of technology observed in social programs demonstrate that supportive eforts are needed at multiple layers to ensure the inclusiveness and participation of older adults in these programs.Given this, we present a three-layered framework for informing the design of future technology to support older adults in community-based social programs, with a focus on leveraging on their design preferences to create inclusive experiences.As shown in Table 5, the framework describes three supportive goals for program delivery, each of which is aligned to diferent design opportunities.

Layer 1: Facilitating Articulation Work for Program Delivery.
Our study reveals diverse situated uses of technology by staf members to make the programs more inclusive for older adults.Instead of using technology to directly facilitate program sessions, staf used it in a more covert way to support program delivery.As well as using technology when required to support program delivery, staf needed to do a certain type of 'articulation work' in the background.This included the coordination and distribution of curriculum resources, and other activities required to make programs more inclusive for older adults.Articulation work refers to the work that is required to 'make work work' [61, p. 19].In our study, articulation work was apparent in staf members' eforts to support older adults' participation in social programs, including coordinating program resources and sharing program delivery information.However, while staf in our study achieved this work by using general ICTs based on their knowledge of older adults' technology preferences and digital literacy, our co-design workshops suggest that more efcient communication channels are needed to streamline this process.One possible way to support this articulation work is to augment general ICTs and online digital platforms with customized operations.For instance, body gesture shortcuts [27] could enable streamlined communication between the organization and program participants.

Layer 2: Fostering Social Interactions Embedded in Existing
Social Programs.A second role for technology is to support the social interactions among participants during program sessions.Our study indicates that multiple needs could be addressed by new designs.
First, the participants in our study believed that rather than developing new programs and social activities centred around technology, it would be better to promote the incidental social interactions embedded in existing programs.Second, as discussed in Section 4.3.2,some participants were excluded from certain small group activities, such as group learning, due to the use of technologies with small screens.Therefore, future technology needs to support small co-located group learning activities during program sessions, especially in digital literacy classes.Moreover, the conversational tabletop game proposed by Yelena indicates another design opportunity to create playful technology to enrich the social interactions among older adults in co-located group settings, especially in social groups.
In this context, we see three possible directions for designing future technology: supporting ad-hoc information sharing among participants in small groups, providing more social prompts with visual and verbal cues during program sessions, and creating multisensory, seamless, and intuitive interaction options to ensure the continuity of social interactions in program sessions.
Supporting ad-hoc information sharing in group settings.First, we argue that collaborative information and screen sharing technology [11,48,49] has the potential to expand program inclusiveness by enabling synchronized information sharing and more equitable participation among group members.This is particularly the case for programs that involve group learning and sense-making through diverse personal devices.Screen sharing would enable participants to view the actual problem that others are experiencing.However, such technology needs to be carefully designed and employed to avoid ethical issues such as the invasion of privacy and exposure of personal information.We also believe that such screen sharing technology can be combined with gesture-based interfaces [10,19] to create more convenient and straightforward information sharing experiences among older adults in co-located group activities.For example, organizations could utilize MyoShare [19], a mid-air gesture-based data sharing system, to support participants to share digital content with others during programs sessions.Using this system, older adults can apply simple mid-air gestures, such as a wave-out and fnger-spread, to send pictures to a laptop or broadcast the fles to all registered devices in the system.
Promoting social prompts with visual and verbal cues.Aligning with previous reports on co-located social interactions [47], we observed instances when technology added visual elements to enrich conversations, with program participants sometimes sharing photographs relevant to the conversation taking place.Given this, we contend that a social prompts generator to foster and encourage incidental social interactions could be valuable during program sessions.A possible way to achieve this is to use digital displays that can prompt conversational topics in public spaces [56].For example, Memarovic et al. [50] installed a public display, Fun-Square, with self-generated local fun facts and quiz games, in a city market square and a library to cultivate spontaneous interactions among people.Likewise, Gaver et al.'s Photostroller system [24] had a similar intention.While these technologies primarily aimed to facilitate new communications among people, we see potential for their use within social programs due to the rich prompts they can provide and the ease of installation.
Enabling multi-sensory, seamless, and intuitive interaction options to ensure the continuity of social interactions.We also posit that technology could be used to create multi-sensory experiences for supporting playful co-located group interactions during program delivery.Participants expressed an interest in incorporating tangible and voice interfaces to enrich their existing social experiences in group settings.However, these technologies should be easy to learn and manipulate for participants with different levels of digital literacy.This is to ensure that participants will not be excluded from existing social and group activities due to lack of digital literacy or as newcomers.
More importantly, our study suggests that, on some occasions, participants' individual interactions with technology should be visible to other group members, and technology should not distract people from continuing to participate in face-to-face group interactions.This aligns with previous work that people considered technology as undesirable when it disrupts the ongoing socialization in co-located settings [47].Given this, we believe that rather than designing technology as the focus of activity, technology should be designed and deployed in a seamless and non-intrusive way to support the continuity of social interactions embedded in existing activities.
Technologies with intuitive interaction options could meet these needs.Tumbler [30], an audio player consisting of physical components with simple interaction options (e.g., shaking, rolling, and tumbling) could be a sample design solution in this context.Fish-Pong [75], a tabletop tangible interface that allows people to control a fsh-themed video game using cofee mugs, could also promote non-intrusive social opportunities for participants as needed, such as flling in the waiting times when they are excluded from some group activities.

Layer 3: Promoting Community-wide Involvement and Social
Connections.In our study, staf strove to help older adults extend their social connections beyond the particular programs that they were involved in, such as Urena's efort to create closed Facebook groups to refer people to other social events.However, we found that some participants were excluded from these social connections due to their personal choices of technology.This suggests a need to design technology to promote additional social connections among program participants, and to increase their involvement in community life.
One approach is to support the inter-program communication among participants through asynchronous information sharing, combining digital and non-digital means.This could alleviate potential communication barriers in situations where participants cannot share information because they do not use the same platform, or cannot meet in-person during the same program session [73].Another direction is to enable both in-person and online connection building and event discovery in community settings.For example, organizations could utilize instant messaging-based awareness systems, such as StudioBRIDGE [74], to notify program participants of nearby people, locations, and events of the local community based on their preferences.

CONCLUSION
This paper reports fndings from a four-month ethnographic study to understand how technology can be designed and used to support older adults in community-based social programs.By observing social program sessions in community settings and interviewing staf members, we found that in order to improve the inclusiveness of social programs, staf used technology in an emergent way to meet the dynamic requirements of program delivery.However, while certain uses of technology by older adults supported some incidental social interactions during program sessions, others negatively afected the dynamics of group activities.Through two rounds of co-design workshops, we identifed key preferences for designing future technology to support older adults in community-based social programs.These included streamlining the interaction process to improve communication efciency, fostering fexible ways for people to interact with the technology, and not disrupting the social environment for program delivery.Building on these, we developed a three-layered framework for informing the design of technology to promote inclusive social program experiences for older adults in the future.
We conclude that a 'program ecology'-comprising the technological, social, and organizational contexts of each program-should be considered when designing technology to support older adults in community-based social programs.We argue that instead of developing technology-centred programs and activities, future technology should be designed and deployed to ensure the continuity of social interactions embedded in existing activities, with an ultimate goal of improving the inclusiveness of community-based social programs for older adults.

A APPENDICES A.1 Co-design Workshop II Scenarios
A.1.1 Scenario 1: Group learning in digital literacy classes.You are taking a digital literacy class at Connecting Well to explore the use of iPhone.Your classmate is discussing with the teacher about an issue he is having -how to send a secret copy of an email to himself.You hear about this problem and want to join the discussion.However, it can be very difcult to keep up with the discussion when a group of people are looking at the small screen that is held by others.What kind of technology could you design to solve this problem and help everyone be involved?
A.1.2Scenario 2: Invite a friend to join a bus trip over a distance.You are now on a bus trip to Sovereign Hill, an open-air museum in Golden Point, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.You really like the historical architecture and atmosphere here, and want to involve Mary, your best friend who couldn't come today due to family commitment, to join over distance.What kinds of technology design ideas can you come up with to achieve this?A.1.3Scenario 3: Share a video with others in a morning tea session.You are attending a morning tea session at Connecting Well.Today, people are talking about their travel experiences, and you show everyone the videos you stored in your smartphone album of the vintage cars that you encountered in UK.Another participant, George, really likes this video and wants you to share them with him.However, he doesn't have a smartphone, and he does not like to use social media platforms.In this case, what kinds of technology design ideas can you think of to make this sharing experience easier for George and others in the morning tea session?
A.1.4Scenario 4: Communicate time-sensitive program delivery information with older adult program participants.You do some volunteer work at Connecting Well and manage events registration.You've just been told that there have been some last-minute changes of today's activities, and you need to notify people about it.You have tried emailing, calling, and sending messages to participants, but it is difcult to know if the information was being conveyed successfully to people.Could you come up with some technology design ideas to help you better communicate information to people so that you know their timely responses?

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Study timeline and data collection activities.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: The activity room at Connecting Well, where most of the social groups and educational sessions take place.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Participants brainstorming in Co-design Workshop II.

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Storyboard: communicating better with older adult program participants about social program information and receiving timely feedback (Yelena & Adeline).Captions on the storyboard: Satellite revolving around earth; Close picture of our satellite; Connecting Well sending message to satellite to share change of plan with all the people; Satellite got the message from Connecting Well and share with people at their homes; The message will start appearing at the screens on its own either (on) TV, phone, etc.

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Storyboard: sharing a video with others in a morning tea session (Enzo & Dylan).Captions on the storyboard: Leon has video on his phone that he wants to share with others in group; Leon has the others' contact deails in his phone; Leon sends video to other phones/iPads etc via Zoom/email; People have a chip in brain to receive video; Sender connects with each chip to send video; Receiver views video in head.

Table 1 :
Demographics of staf members.Experience of the current role at Connecting Well **Confdence levels in using digital technologies: very confdent, somewhat confdent, neutral, somewhat unconfdent, very unconfdent

Table 3 :
Description of observed social programs.

Table 4 :
A summary of selected scenarios in co-design workshop II.Summary You are taking a digital literacy class.Your classmate is discussing with the teacherChosen groupBlair and Cara acy classes about an issue he is having.You hear about this problem and want to join the discussion.However, it can be very difcult to keep up with the discussion when a group of people are looking at the small screen that is held by others.Invite a friend to join a bus trip You are now on a bus trip to Sovereign Hill.You really like the historical architecture Enzo and Dylan over a distance and atmosphere here, and want to involve Mary, your best friend who couldn't come today due to family commitment, to join over distance.Share a video with others in a You are attending a morning tea session.People are talking about their travel experi-Enzo and Dylan morning tea session ences.You show everyone the videos you stored in your smartphone of the vintage cars.Another participant, George, wants you to share them with him.However, he doesn't have a smartphone, and he does not like to use social media platforms.Communicate time-sensitive You do some volunteer work and manage events registration.You've just been told Yelena and Adeline program delivery information that there have been some last-minute changes of today's activities, and you need with older adult program par-to notify people about it.You have tried emailing, calling, and sending messages ticipants to participants, but it is difcult to know if the information was being conveyed successfully to people.

Table 5 :
Framework for designing future technology to create inclusive social program experiences for older adults.
.1.5Scenario 5: Participate in a Community Choir from a distance.You really enjoy participating in Community Choir at Connecting Well and singing with this lovely group.However, you have recently needed to move out of the neighbourhood to some place far away from Connecting Well.What kind of technology could you design to help you continue participating in the Community Choir at many digital skills.However, as the class progresses, it becomes Connecting Well from a distance?hard to retain the learnt knowledge.Could you design some technologies to help you retain and practise these digital skills?A.1.6Scenario 6: Retain and practise learnt digital skills.You joined technology classes at Connecting Well recently, and have learnt