Concepts and Issues in Elderly Friendly Design

Concept and Issues in Design Elderly Friendly

(Nor Hanani Binti Mohd Yusoff, Siti Hajar Binti Ab Rahim)

Abstract

A good design product was defined as a design that innovative, functional, useful, aesthetic, intuitive, long lasting and user oriented. Though the term that always being relates to a good design is a user friendly design. A user friendly design will fulfill the purpose and the needs of the target user that may be a child, teenagers and even elderly. The purpose of this term paper is to identify and explain about the concept and issues of design for elderly friendly. Demographic shows that the elderly is becoming the fastest growing nowadays. In the world that basically follows IT development, it is needed for elderly to make use of any new products and to use it efficiently. This paper also covers application and guidelines in designing specifically for elderly. There were many issues with regards to design for elderly friendly.

1. Introduction

In a developed as well as developing countries, the number of older people is keep on increasing. According to [1] it was predicted that 21.1% of the population would be senior citizens by the year 2030.As compared to new design to elderly, the novel innovation for child and teenagers are more likely to be produced by manufacturer. This is due to many reasons for example profit margin and lack of novel innovations in the field of elder care etc. has become a major problem nowadays [2]. Elderly people are often in danger of getting isolated, might lose social contacts and therefore experience loneliness. Golden et al.[3] claimed that the social context is very important for elderly’s well-being to prevent depressed mood. In the context of design wise, the challenge when developing a system to support elderly needs is arises from the need to make it simple to use for example using only a few buttons and provide a kind of help desk such as easy instruction supported by pictures that visualize the next steps [4].

2. Methodology

The methodology used to complete the term paper is by doing paper review through various trusted resources such as Google Scholar, SAGE journal, IEEE, ACM and many more. Previous papers are being studied and some important issues about design for elderly have been extracted out. In order to get the related research papers, we insert any keywords that more likely related to design and elderly.

The documents founded that are for sales are then obtained from the ilibrary UiTM by free of charge. Ilibrary UiTM that is intended for UiTM students provides a collection of database of all digital collections of education paper from previous years and allows students to download research papers, books and e-service journal among variety famous global publishers.

3. Findings

3.1 Mobile phone design to elderly

According to [5], those who are aged 70 years are the fastest growing age group. Older aged populations basically are the wealth of the population in the world. Thus, the new technologies that are going to be introduced have to cater the needs from this group of people. One of the technologies that have higher demand in innovation is mobile phone. By using mobile phones, everybody including elderly would have the capability to experiences such as stay connected; let them remember important information and even have fun by portable game systems. For elderly, they might interested to use mobile phone for the purposed of maintaining social relationship and providing health and security services [6]. They should be encouraged to use mobile phones more effectively by more usable user interfaces. A research by [7] included the participations from the older user in proposing and designing icons for specific mobile phone functions. Core functionality of desktop and mobile applications is indicated by the icons. It is the most significant features to support a user interface. Desired features of mobile phones by older adults were identified by surveying, and interviewing the test subjects. The result from the research indicates that, the participatory icon design process is successful in reducing system complexity and increase usability. They also conclude that the participatory design process is useful with the elderly. The older adults claimed the participatory design process is interesting and believed the resulting designs would be more familiar and friendlier.

3.2Factors in designing a product for elderly

As we know, the growing population as people age, will more likely to experience vision and hearing impairments, easily to loss memory, having a very slow adaption process to certain things and tend to give a very slow response towards things that happen in their surroundings. In order to suit the technology with their disabilities, people should start to think on what can be done effectively for the elderly to ensure that technology also can be benefit to them.

The elderly is well known as a very sensitive group of people. If they found anything that is hard for them to understand its functions, they will easily losing their interest to know in details about the product. This may lead them to use the new product in a very short time, which is something that is not worth it. As for this reason, this is where the usability of products comes to picture. Our target is to find ways on how to engage everyone with technology. Since the world nowadays is not focusing much on the elderly group, we can start think of what can be the kick start to achieve this target, as the elderly is also our important target user.

3.3 Concept of designing elderly friendly

Seeing in details in the concept of designing an elderly friendly product, we may focus to create a product that can be easily learnt by them. Take an example of mobile phones. Instead of displaying a series of instructions on the screen, the instructions can be displayed one by one, each by each for every step. This way will make the elderly clear to understand in using the functions. Apart from that, we can also change the interface to be more attractive yet simple and have contrast in its colors. This will help elderly who may not able to see clearly and might have problems in accommodating dramatic changes of lighting level. Other than that, the zooming function can be added to help them read easily. By doing this, it can increase their memorability for their next use.

It is also important for some application to have the error frequency adapted in it. It is because it will make the elderly clear about the mistakes or wrong steps that they performed, thus it will on the same time making them avoiding the same wrong steps to be taken in their next use. The red error signage or message will attract their attention and give them awareness that they have done it wrongly.

Not only that, if we are focusing on some other products or space that is intentionally for elderly, it is required to consider some other basic things like safety design provisions for a specific products, their ability to push open heavy doors, their stamina towards an actions, and many more. All of these factors will help designers to achieve its goal to produce a good quality product as well as delivering useful products for elderly goods.

Other study conducted by [7] which aim to study the perspective of human factors in the scope of an elderly monitoring system. They designed a system that is capable to continuously monitor the elderly and support them with various services. Result from the monitoring is being updated to caregiver. Response from elderly and caregivers will determine the impact whether they understand the purpose and usefulness of the system. Experiments had also being conducted and the result show how good signs of improvement with respect to efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction.

3.4 Issues related to designing elderly friendly

One of the issues in designing elderly friendly product is that the designers may not fully understand the elderly impairments, and also their abilities. For this, the result of the product may not be effectively used by elderly. This is why it is important for the designers to take an initiative to do some research about elderly lifestyle. Their lifestyle may be varies, depends on the individual. There are some group of elderly who are into new technology as they have worked in fields related to IT or because they have more likely to expose with the surroundings that using IT product such as mobile devices, internet, and many more but they are some who never know about new technology that have been implemented in today’s products for elderly use.

This is true to be said that the success of a product built with technology are depending on the acceptance of the target user. In our case, the target user is the elderly. Hence, it is a must to ensure that elderly get all the usability’s for their use. Elderly group are always seems like a left-behind group when it comes to IT. They have been considered as a group which is the most difficult group to adapt and learn about new technology. In order to overcome this wrong assumption, an appropriate training is the better way to educate them about the growing technology. By giving them awareness, they will at least have some idea on how to handle some new products nowadays.

Other than that, the issue is about the privacy and trust. They are mentally prepared to accept new things as we all know that the elderly prefer to use a product that they have used regularly in their daily life. So when it comes to design a new product for elderly, the old design and its functions must be maintained as they are the group of sensitive people, they cannot be forced. They will not easily adapt to what the new generation is telling them to use. Also, they tend to show no interest to a new product or innovation especially when they have no knowledge about the product. Designers play an important role here in understanding the concept and function for certain products. If they still lack of the trust, we have to help them by showing them the awareness by advertising the products or new system that is being introduced in today’s world.

4.0Conclusion

In a nutshell, exposing the new tools to the elderly is a suggested way in getting them into our nature of IT. Moreover, they will not feel left with the technology that is growing rapidly in our life. In future, all of the elderly are well occupied with the latest technology and they can share their knowledge with their peers. Design with a good aspect and criteria for the elderly is important as elderly are more encouraged using them especially when they come with an attractive design. Well education for the elderly must be implemented as early as possible for their age. When all the elderly are full with knowledge, many products, system and innovations can be built according to their requirements and needs. All of the products not only will make the elderly to be more interactive and communicative to engage with the people around them, but also making their life easily and less complicated.

Reference

[1] V.Z., Ogozalek, The social impacts of computing: Computer technology and the graying of America. Social Science Computer Review, 9 (4), 1991, pp. 6 5 5 -666.

[2] Assistive Technology for Elders: Wireless Intelligent Healthcare Gadget [3] J. Golden, R.M. Conroy, I. Bruce, A. Denihan, E. Greene, M. Kirby and B.A. Lawlor, “Loneliness, social support networks, mood and wellbeing in community-dwelling elder ly”, in International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol. 24, 2009, pp. 694-700.

[4] Elderly’s Social Presence supported by ICTs Investigating User Requirements for Social Presence

[5] E.L., Schneider, Cutting the costs of aging, Issues in Science and Technology, 7 (4), 1991, pp. 47 -49.

[6] M. Garcia, AN. Badre, IT. Stasko, Development and validation of icons varying in their abstractness, Interacting with Computers, 6, 1994, pp. 191-212.

[7] Y. Batu Salman, Y. Batu Salman, Hong-In Cheng, Senior friendly icon design for the mobile phone

[8] Hossain, M.A., Perspectives of human factors in designing elderly monitoring system. Computers in Human Behavior, 2014. 33: p. 63-68.