Survey improving usability of the smartphones for elders

The focal point of this study is the usability of smartphones for elderly individuals. Notably, Android dominates the current smartphone market share at 72.72%. This prevalence is influenced by various factors, including affordability, a diverse array of manufacturers, and a multitude of options for users to choose from. The satisfaction of most Android users is underscored, and even in cases of dissatisfaction, the platform offers ample opportunities for easy customization of devices. The challenge lies in the reluctance of elderly individuals to embrace the latest technological trends, including social media platforms. It is evident that the elderly exhibit hesitancy in adopting new technologies such as smartphones and their features. This hesitation is attributed to a need for a user experience that is clearer and more understandable, especially when compared to younger users. Elderly individuals often find it challenging to independently navigate essential smartphone features, necessitating assistance from family members or friends who possess a better understanding of the device. This extends to basic tasks such as making calls, sending texts, setting up new devices, and various other functionalities. In this research, an effort is made to understand this barrier with the study of both user experiences and user interface design elements (text size, font, color, etc.) of Smartphones that affect the elderly population. Launchers have been made to overcome this problem but the aim of this research is to find the gap and analyze its solution. The research finds that the gap is because of the android operating system user experience & interface design, since android is developed and managed by google. The research shows how the operating system OS can be improved and make the elder user needs. The primary emphasis of this research is directed towards enhancing the comprehensive experience and interface across the entire operating system. Google's decision to make Android open-source, known as the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP), allows global developers to contribute improvements without the need for special licenses. The proposed idea within this research aims to elevate the AOSP to align with the distinct experience and design expectations of elderly users. This research details the customization of AOSP, resulting in a tailored version of the operating system that incorporates features such as a modified keyboard, audible feedback for actions, enhanced text and control elements, a simplified drag-and-drop experience, redesigned icons, and adjustments to the unlocking and welcome screens that will improves user experience and user interface for elders

Native Mobile Applications For Personal Well-Being: A Persuasive Systems Design Evaluation

Smartphone applications have shown promise in supporting people to adopt healthy lifestyles. Hence, it is critical to understand persuasive design strategies incorporated in native mobile applications that facilitate behavior change. The aim of our study was to identify distinct persuasive software features assimilated in twelve selected applications using Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model and provide a methodical framework for systems developers and IS researchers to extract and evaluate such features. Further, this study aimed to provide deeper comprehension of persuasive design and strategies by learning from practice. Exhaustive evaluations were performed by four researchers specializing in persuasive information systems simulating users walking through the applications step-by-step performing regular tasks. The results disclose the need for improvement in designing and incorporating persuasive techniques in personal well-being applications. While self-monitoring and personalization were moderately exploited, tailoring, a key persuasive feature, was not identified among the evaluated applications. In addition, evaluated applications lacked features that could augment human-computer dialogue as well as social support. The contribution of this paper is two-fold: while it exposes weakness in persuasive design of native mobile applications for personal well-being, it provides a methodical approach for enhancing general persuasiveness of such applications for instance, through enhanced dialogue support. We propose that designers and IS researchers perform rigorous evaluations of persuasive features incorporated in personal well-being applications

Senior Programmers: Characteristics of Elderly Users from Stack Overflow

In this paper we presents results of research about elderly users of Stack Overflow (Question and Answer portal for programmers). They have different roles, different main activities and different habits. They are an important part of the community, as they tend to have higher reputation and they like to share their knowledge. This is a great example of possible way of keeping elderly people active and helpful for society

Investigando Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) : tecnologias e interação em contexto de acessibilidade

Orientador: Maria Cecília Calani BaranauskasTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) representam um novo paradigma de interação, com a promessa de ser mais intuitivo e fácil de usar do que seu antecessor, que utiliza mouse e teclado. Em um contexto no qual as tecnologias estão cada vez mais invisíveis e pervasivas, não só a quantidade mas também a diversidade de pessoas que participam deste contexto é crescente. Nesse caso, é preciso estudar como esse novo paradigma de interação de fato consegue ser acessível a todas as pessoas que podem utilizá-lo no dia-a-dia. Ademais, é preciso também caracterizar o paradigma em si, para entender o que o torna, de fato, natural. Portanto, nesta tese apresentamos o caminho que percorremos em busca dessas duas respostas: como caracterizar NUIs, no atual contexto tecnológico, e como tornar NUIs acessíveis para todos. Para tanto, primeiro apresentamos uma revisão sistemática de literatura com o estado da arte. Depois, mostramos um conjunto de heurísticas para o design e a avaliação de NUIs, que foram aplicadas em estudos de caso práticos. Em seguida, estruturamos as ideias desta pesquisa dentro dos artefatos da Semiótica Organizacional, e obtivemos esclarecimentos sobre como fazer o design de NUIs com Acessibilidade, seja por meio de Design Universal, seja para propor Tecnologias Assistivas. Depois, apresentamos três estudos de caso com sistemas NUI cujo design foi feito por nós. A partir desses estudos de caso, expandimos nosso referencial teórico e conseguimos, por fim, encontrar três elementos que resumem a nossa caracterização de NUI: diferenças, affordances e enaçãoAbstract: Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) represent a new interaction paradigm, with the promise of being more intuitive and easy to use than its predecessor, that utilizes mouse and keyboard. In a context where technology is becoming each time more invisible and pervasive, not only the amount but also the diversity of people who participate in this context is increasing. In this case, it must be studied how this new interaction paradigm can, in fact, be accessible to all the people who may use it on their daily routine. Furthermore, it is also necessary to characterize the paradigm itself, to understand what makes it, in fact, natural. Therefore, in this thesis we present the path we took in search of these two answers: how to characterize NUIs in the current technological context, and how to make NUIs accessible to all. To do so, first we present a systematic literature review with the state of the art. Then, we show a set of heuristics for the design and evaluation of NUIs, which were applied in practical study cases. Afterwards, we structure the ideas of this research into the Organizational Semiotics artifacts, and we obtain insights into how to design NUIs with Accessibility, be it through Universal Design, be it to propose Assistive Technologies. Then, we present three case studies with NUI systems which we designed. From these case studies, we expanded our theoretical references were able to, finally, find three elements that sum up our characterization of NUI: differences, affordances and enactionDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutora em Ciência da Computação160911/2015-0CAPESCNP

Usability Recommendations for Designers of Smartphone Applications for Older Adults: An Empirical Study

Older adults (OAs) are a growing and dominant part of the global population, with specific communication and usability needs. Information technology, such as smartphone applications, has the potential to help OAs stay connected, yet some designs do not appeal to this group of users. Current recommendations for the design of usable smartphone applications for OAs can be hard to apply and difficult to interpret. As a result, designers of smartphone applications do not have a clear set of recommendations for the design of smartphones for OAs. In this paper we elicit and transform usability trends and difficulties experienced directly by tech-savvy1 OA users, into an organised set of recommendations. To do this we conducted an empirical study in four stages: (1) Data extraction. Digital context is extracted through conducting Think Aloud sessions with tech-savvy OAs (aged 50+); (2) Data mapping. Digital content extractions are mapped against 7 key aspects of usability; (3) Validation. Validated mappings through inter-rater reliability testing; (4) Presentation. Presented resultant recommendations as design patterns. Applying this method resulted in a set of 131 Usability recommendations with some overlap, transformed into a set of 14 design patterns that can act as a starting point for designers and developers of smartphone applications for OAs, and for pedagogy. Three of these patterns are presented in this study

Study on the WeChat to improve user experience for Chinese older adults

As a consequence of the one-child policy, the older adult population in China—defined as 55 years and older—has been growing geometrically over the past few decades. Meanwhile, urban expansion-part of China\u27s modernization-gave rise to a situation in which young adults migrate to major cities, further stratifying the social structure in China and isolating older adult communities. With 620 million active users, WeChat is the most popular all-in-one social media app on smartphones in China. It has been increasingly adopted by older adult users to cope with the challenge of loneliness and unhappiness due to social changes. However, the interface design of the WeChat app appeals to active young adult users, making it challenging for older adult users and leaving them confused when they use the app, due to their decreased cognitive and physical performance as they age. The purpose of this study is to improve the WeChat user experience for Chinese older adults. A quantitative research method with an IRB-approved survey was conducted to collect the quantitative data concerning the older adult user experience of WeChat. A series of vigorous data analyses were implemented using Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS), a comprehensive statistical tool largely used in social sciences, marketing, healthcare, and more to extract information and knowledge in a data mining process. The findings revealed in the data analysis were further utilized to guide the design process to improve the user experience of WeChat, making the app much easier for older adults to use daily

An Evaluation of Quran Memorization Mobile App among Middle-Aged Adults and Early Elderly

There are many mobile applications that help to boost Quran memorization, but the target users are normally for general people without specifically consider the design for ageing people. This becomes imperative since ageing people need to face with the cognitive and physical decline as they are getting older. Hence, to enhance Quran memorization, a mobile app known as E-Hafazan was developed. For the interface design, the researchers integrated the mobile design guidelines for ageing people that comprise of seven categories: cognitive, content, navigation, visual, audio, perception and dexterity. The aims of this paper are to investigate the usability of mobile interface design and user acceptance on E-Hafazan mobile app for Quran memorization. A total of 30 people around Arau, Perlis participated in the system evaluation. The participants were in the category of middle-aged adults and early elderly, between the ages of 40-74 years old. From the findings, most of the respondents are satisfied with the E-Hafazan app since it is effective, interactive and ubiquitous for memorizing Al-Quran although there is a slight lack in the result of the visual category for the mobile interface design

Creating mobile gesture-based interaction design patterns for older adults : a study of tap and swipe gestures with portuguese seniors

Tese de mestrado. Multimédia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

Software Usability

This volume delivers a collection of high-quality contributions to help broaden developers’ and non-developers’ minds alike when it comes to considering software usability. It presents novel research and experiences and disseminates new ideas accessible to people who might not be software makers but who are undoubtedly software users