Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

Jenil Malavia - 201114004

Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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INTRODUCTION

With advancements in Health Services and awareness the demographics of senior citizens is a steady

rising curve. So designing for senior citizens should be given considerable importance and right tools

have to be produced to aid their easy living. One of such many issues’ is they are often bombarded by

new technological advancements which is very overwhelming. This paper attempts to design an

interface that abstracts technological difficulties and provides better communication medium.

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

1. Population

The following figures taken from World Data Bank show that there a steady increase in population of

people aged above 65.

2. Health

Senior Citizens have very high deteriorated health conditions. They suffer from

Lessened hearing, diminished eyesight, slower reactions to times and agility, reduced ability to think

clearly and face difficulties in recalling memories.

Jakob Nielson’s Research

1. Some inputs from the research conducted by Jakob Nielson on heuristics of senior citizens.

2. Overall Usability (normalized geo. mean) for Senior citizens is100% when compared to

teenagers which is 222%.

3. Sites that target seniors should use at least 12-point type as the default.

4. Pull-down menus, hierarchically walking menus, and other moving interface elements cause

problems for seniors.

5. Your message should focus on the error, explain it clearly, and make it as easy as possible to fix.

Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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6. Between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year.

My understanding on designing for senior citizens:

1. The difference between an icon and a sign should be understood

2. Minimalism should be the driving force to design

3. Redundancy should be employed to increase adaptability

4. Large typography with altered sizes

5. Less is more –errors are reduced directly by reducing options –make task flow as

linear as possible

6. Might look bad but serves the purpose best : use breadcrumbs and split windows

Probable Solution

An Ipad application that abstracts all the technological difficulties and provides an easy to use interface.

Ipad is chosen because it easy to carry and has required screen size.

The following screens show the outcome of the design:

Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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Communication Interface for Senior Citizens

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CONCLUSION

There is a great need to design for senior citizens and better technologies should be used to abstract the

difficulties. Inclusive methods and redundancy in task completion should be employed. Designing for

devices like tablets that are easy to carry and redefined the design approach should be encouraged.

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