Designing digital pet adoption services: barriers and opportunities for Italian old adults

Social isolation and loneliness can play an important role in Italian old adults’ health. Adopting a pet could help mitigate negative health effects and could at the same time help reduce the number of animals living in shelters. Digital platforms can be a useful instrument to improve pet adoption rates thanks to matchmaking processes; however, little research has been done on verifying if old adults can effectively benefit from their use. This study follows the development of a service concept, afFido, that focuses on applying a matchmaking pattern to pet adoption and support. Nine participants explored their relationships with having pets and five testers were recruited to investigate the usability of an app prototype. The qualitative interviews have highlighted the presence of fear of attachment and loss which can prevent pet adoption in particular among male old adults. The digital platform’s usability scored lower than average due to a perceived lack of information as well as conflicts between common matchmaking patterns and the testers’ knowledge. To become effective, digital pet adoption services should focus on including emotional issues in their narrative and may benefit from working together with old adults in reinterpreting matchmaking patterns to improve their usability.