Written by
Joonas
What do we
all have in common? We are all aging… Technology isn’t only used by people in
their 20s or 30s. The population (in Finland) is getting older and older [1].
We shouldn’t exclude the elderly from the use of technology. After all, most of
us are considered as elderly people at some point.
When we
think about the elderly, the first thing that comes to mind is the decrease of
the senses of vision and hearing. Also, the decrease of the working memory
capacity and motor skills. All of these put the elderly in disadvantage against
the younger generation. Loss in near vision can be corrected with glasses, but
reduced field of vision, decline in contrast and colour sensitivity and motor
skills cannot be corrected as easily. Fortunately, this can be made easier for
the user with proper design guidelines. Technology should be accessible to
everyone, no matter the age or abilities of the user. This can be achieved by
devices designed specifically for elderly, or by designing the content with
accessibility[2] in mind.
The elderly
require usually assistance (and persuasion) in taking technology into use. More
often than I can remember, I have said that “You should try to do it first by
yourself. You cannot learn to do it, if you don’t try” while simultaneously trying
to teach how to do the task. Usually they haven’t even tried to do it by
themselves before asking me to do it for them. Often, they succeed with the
task with minimum help from me. Maybe they just wanted someone to oversee the
whole situation, so they would feel comfortable with the technology.
If the
technology product is branded for “the elderly” or as “assisted living aid”, it
might make it hard for the user (in this case, an elderly person) to accept
using it. They don’t generally want to be seen as someone who can’t take care
of themselves. Even if the device is technologically advanced and full of
features, it might still be considered as an elderly product and left to be. I
think this is nowadays the biggest challenge when designing technology for
elderly. After a while, the situation could be entirely different because the
next generation has already used all kinds of devices for a long time.
References:
TIE-40106
Psychology of Pervasive Computing Lecture 12 – 19.11.2018
Technology is aim to provide people a better experience and improvement. Therefore it supposed to be common design for everyone. The older generation which over 65s is considered to be forgot by technology, due to complicated operating system and unfamiliar digital devise, they are afraid of learning new thing in order to avoid making mistake, this is the biggest problem that we have to deal with when developing user-friendly environment.
ReplyDeleteI like the concept you mentioned about, If the specific product is branded for the elderly will cause opposite affect, it shows technology isolate and non-acceptance in different generation and possibly worsen the gap between human and technology. What we have to do is create a common design by consider the usability among every condition, including visual, aural and tactile sense, also conduct it through accessible user interface, make technology unlimited.
-Chia-hsin Wu 282239
So it seems that in order to create helpful devices for the elderly you need to approach it from the other direction. Design it as something that elderly and other people can use and market it as a generaly helpful device instead. You have to also consider that todays adults are tomorrows elderly, by introducting helpful pieces of technology earlier in their life, even if they don't use it, can reduce the feelings of shame in using such things, or even eliminate it entirely if the device is handy enough to be used before.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents.
Miikael
I completely agree with the points made in this blog posts: very few elderly people are acceptive of technology and those who are, are usually either have been in or are still a work in IT field.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as Joonas pointed out, it would seem that most of the times they just want an insurance from an overseer when they come in contact with technology they are not quite familiar with, even though most of the time they manage just fine by themselves.
As for the marketing targeting elderly people specifically, I don't think that they are not into going along into this because of shame but rather because by buying these products they are inadvertently admitting to themselves that they are old. And nobody likes to be reminded about their age. Also, there might be a part of stigma that is associated with said products. More often then not, they tend to be cash grab gimmicks, that might seem helpful on paper, but in reality are just a waste of money and time and (for elderly) effort to learn to use the thing.
Very thoughtful post! I really liked how you brought up many psychological angles on how to design better technology for the elderly users and how they could be at a disadvantage against the younger users - very important observation. Also the real life situations you described were very relatable to me as I've been there myself giving instructions to the elderly regarding the use of computers and a variety of applications. I've noticed the same that many elderly computer users often just need someone to stand by and give a few words of encouragement to complete a task. Many already have the needed skills, but lack the courage due to a fear that something might go wrong. So I think it's really important to think how can we design products (applications, softwares, even computers) that consider this notion and support the natural learning without inducing further fears of technology. It would have been nice to see an example of e.g. an application that has considered these aspects well. I agree with you that anything labeled for elderly users would not be appropriate.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI have exactly the same kind of experiences with technology and elderly people.
It can be seen from today's elderly that they don't use technology with confidence. For them, devices such as smartphones have not been around that long. It is interesting to think about us as when we are 70 year olds. We probably won't rely on designs that are aimed for elderly people, as we have used all kinds of technology our whole lives.
When it comes to future UX design, will guidelines become more loose as we may not have to design for the elderly anymore? Of course we still have to take things such as color blindness and other accessibility issues into account.
When we design a system we mostly look towards bigger user group and forgot other user group like elderly people. It is nice to see you considered it.
ReplyDeleteDesigning technology for different users group is very a core purpose of UX design process. It has its own things to consider. Right now the big issue is today's senior generation didn't have opportunity to use technological devices in their young age. But probably in our later part of life, we may not face similar sort of issues. But I think if we could make our recent devices highly customizable to suit different types of user it may also help elderly. In this case technologies may not get obsolete with time, I mean from younger to older. Yea, that might way to do.
It was really interesting post which also reflected my thoughts. Various aspects you have mentioned in designing a product for elderly is a challenging process especially for elderlies of current generation who merely exposed to technology. Nowadays,as most of the tasks were done through the online services, its more important that the elder people needs to be trained and assisted in order to complete their tasks/payments. To make this effective complete UX design plays major role in solving their expectations. As mentioned by you, the design must support their vision and motor skills.
ReplyDeleteYou are exactly on point in this post. I worked as an tech support last summer where most of our customers were elderly people. And like you also said probably the main issue with elderly people using todays tech. is the lack of confidence. They are afraid of exploring the possibilities of their devices because they feel that if they do something wrong it will break. They just need the "push" and someone to say that go for it, it's okay. Great job Joonas!
ReplyDeleteMatias Mane
Thanks for an insightful post!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it is a real challenge how to make technology accessible for all, and how to lower the barrier of starting to use it. I agree that many elderly may be capable of using some of the novel technologies we have today, but many fear e.g. that they could make errors from which they might not be able to recover, which increases the barrier of starting to experiment with new technology. The guidance, assistance and recovery from errors are thus critical design considerations, as you stated. In addition, I personally feel we could emphasise the psychological need of competence (which is one source of motivation) especially when designing for the elderly: giving positive feedback can increase motivation and help experience mastery in technology use. Perhaps for example gamification could be used more to enhance this for the elderly?
Nice post! I like the way you brought how relictant they are about using technology. I can relate it to my own parents as well. But despite these challanges we gotta find a solution to involve them using technologies. Otherwise it can create more gap between elderly and most of the systems of present world. Its not pleasant When my mom is waiting the whole day for me to call an uber because she won’t use smartphones!
ReplyDeleteThat post was really good.
ReplyDeleteBut I think the main problem is in the connection between the young and the "old" people. Because most oft the smart devices and applications are are made for young people, because these mostly use them and are the main target group. If I think for example of my erasmus - I'm sharing pictures to my friends and parents easily over social networks like instagram. I use it because I reach a lot of people very easily and don't have to send it to each person separately and also can't forget anyone. But my grandparents don't have such technology and also no smartphones which could handle this, so it's very hard to reach "old" people via such applications because already the basics are missing or the device for using the applications.
It would be good if there is a possibility to join both, but the you have to make expand the target group or do two versions of it and then we're again in the problem you mentioned - old people don't want to feel old.
Indeed, a very interesting post connected to the human stage of life, often not been taken into consideration by the present technological era we live in.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I do recognize several of the patterns described in the post. This recognition allocates in the aspect of looking at this subject first through the eyes of a designer. The designer in me invokes strongly for the accessibility and the ease of use of new technologies for elderly people. For that reason, the intriguing and deviating feeling of seeing that design for elderly people, in my opinion, is nearly nonexistent motivated me to comment.
From younger days in high school and having a job in the health care industry, it made me realize today that most of the present technology is there for us younger generation, to help our elderly ones. Perhaps an extreme hypothesis from my side, nevertheless I do not notice many products, devices, innovation or technology for this specific target group.
I believe there is a gap between technologies and so called assisting innovations for elderly people. Assisting innovations, like the wheel chair or an assisting car with a built in elevator are just exactly what they are, assisting. There is no considerable conventional interaction between an elderly person and the innovation itself. The interaction I am pointing towards is how we younger generation interact with computers or any type of technological devices in our daily life. In consequence, these categories of technology are not designed for the target group of this subject. In addition, this leads me to the conclusion where the elderly, as a target group, might be completely overlooked.
One could definitely speculate to the extremity where elderly people are seen as a non-profitable target group, on account of their phase in life of which soon might end. A dishonorable view in my opinion of which perhaps could be a valid statement, due to how our present societies and economies are build.
Secondly, as a son and working with support, I have seeing elderly people struggle with new technology and at the same time feeling ashamed of failing. My observations had leaded me to notice a certain pattern in the struggle of remembering and retaining operative information in the memory, the many steps we younger generation proceed with to task completion. Hence, I see these many operative steps to complete a task in new technology as non-elderly friendly.
A challenging innovation I came up with is based on the creation of a simple computer for the target group of the blog post. Very simple in the characteristic of every task should only be based on three operative steps to complete a task.
Another matter to think about why elderly people might struggle with new technology, is the fact that they havent lived with technology the way we have. Allmost everyone of us was born with computers existing already, and have been interacting with them from a young age. Humans learning is most efficient on young age which gives an unfair advange on technology and learning how to use it compared to elderly people. The aspect of "not having seen this before" is an important aspect when designing for elderly.
ReplyDelete