OldPhone: A video communication system designed to suit elderly people's abilities and needs Derived by a PD process with elderly people

Abstract

The aim with this thesis was to investigate how a video communication system best possible could be designed to fit elderly people's abilities and needs. The interest was to find out what kind of interaction and platform to design for as well as what to consider when designing graphical user interfaces for elderly users. The goal was to conduct a participatory design process and involve elderly users. A field study was conducted, where 9 elderly users were interviewed. This was followed by observations in weekly technology classes at a Senior centre in Oslo. The two field studies resulted in insights about elderly people's life situations, technology use and common problems that appear during use of technology. One important insight was that touch and tablets are widely used and accepted among elderly people. It was therefore decided to use tablets as platform for the video communication system. A prototype of a tablet interface was then developed and tested with elderly users. The project resulted in recommendations to use when designing a video communication system and touch interfaces for elderly users. It also resulted in a designed video communication system, OldPhone, derived by the use of these recommendations. Elderly people are a highly diverse user group, with many and changing needs. This creates a challenge for designers since the interfaces need to meet many different abilities. A recommendation is to use functions for adaptation, so the interface can be customised for the specific user. Some other recommendations are to avoid more than two level menus, and different commands for similar touch actions. An insight was also gained about the involvement of elderly users in participatory design - the importance of creating relationships with users for conducting a successful process.