Development and UI/UX Testing of an iTV Companion Application

for Seniors

Telmo Silva

, Martinho Mota

and Carlos Silva

CIC.DIGITAL/Digimedia, Department of Communication and Arts, University of Aveiro,

Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Keywords: Seniors, Mobile Applications, Companion Applications, Second-screen Applications, Usability, User

Experience.

Abstract: This paper presents the results of testing a second-screen mobile application designed for senior users. This

work is part of the +TV4E project, a larger study which focuses on promoting info-inclusion among the senior

Portuguese population by directly sending them information regarding public and social services. The

developed mobile application was integrated into this project as a complement for the already existing iTV

application, which delivered informative videos to seniors, serving both as a second-screen app, by

augmenting the TV experience and as a standalone application, by allowing users to access their videos

outside their homes. Initially, a prototype application was developed with the objective of being presented to

a group of seniors in order to identify the major interface flaws, subsequently, the prototype was improved

taking into consideration the gathered feedback.

1 INTRODUCTION

Population aging is an inevitable natural occurrence

that has led to a significant inversion of the aging

pyramid in the developed societies in the last decades.

Nearly every country is facing an increased longevity

of adults, which in turn reflect in an increase of older

people, both in the number and proportions

(Rosenberg et al., 2013). This phenomenon became

one of the greatest challenges for modern civilization

and is affecting all sectors of society, namely labour

and financial markets, goods and services, such as

housing, transportation and social protection (United

Nations, 2015). Forecasts indicate that a rapid

increase in the number of people aged 60 or over in

the medium-term will occur in the near future.

Between 2015 and 2030 it is estimated that the total

population aged 60 years and over will increase from

901 million to 1.4 billion, reaching nearly 2.1 billion

in 2050 (United Nations, 2015). This increase in life

expectancy can be considered as a great achievement

for developed societies, however, it raises various

challenges and concerns to citizens, governments,

and communities. Changes in public health policies,

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9383-7659

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5941-2032

retirement and pension policies, social security and

education, are some of the consequences of

demographic aging (Teixeira et al., 2013) (He et al.,

2016). Although aging is characterized by several

physical, psychological and social changes which can

result in various problems, being old does not

necessarily have to be synonymous of illness,

disability, dependency, isolation, or loneliness.

Living longer can become distressing and

problematic for both the individuals themselves and

for those around them when proper conditions for

being independent, active, and healthy are not

available. It is important to develop policies and

strategies that allow older people to maintain or

improve their quality of life so that aging start being

seen from the perspective of "add life to years"

instead of "add years to life". Considering the aging

process, the concept of “quality of life” is highly

determined by the individual's ability to maintain

their autonomy and independence (Kalache and Gatti,

2002). Particularly in Portugal, 2,032,606 citizens

were 65 years or over in 2012. Considering optimistic

projections and the current trends of fertility,

mortality and migration, in 2060 this number will

increase to 3,343,987 (Instituto Nacional de

124

Silva, T., Mota, M. and Silva, C.

Development and UI/UX Testing of an iTV Companion Application for Seniors.

DOI: 10.5220/0007744601240134

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2019), pages 124-134

ISBN: 978-989-758-368-1

Estatística, 2017). Information is vital for everyone,

especially the senior population, which needs to stay

well informed so that they can adapt their lifestyle

within social and governmental norms, maintaining

their autonomy and independence. Access to

information is one of the areas which influence

seniors’ quality of life the most. It allows people to be

more knowledgeable about their environments and

thus allow them to make decisions in a more

supported manner (Silva et al., 2017). In Portugal,

despite the existence of plenty of information

regarding social and public services, which is made

available in several service outlets as well as online

platforms, often seniors cannot easily access it

because it requires a certain degree of proficiency in

technical terms which can be hard to understand by

most of the citizens. To further aggravate this

situation for the senior population, accessing this

information involves a pro-active behaviour by the

user, often not seen in seniors (Silva et al., 2018). In

this context, the +TV4E platform’s goal is to bring

information regarding social and public services to

seniors, allowing them to easily gain access to

services without the need to search for them. The core

of this platform consists in notifying users of

informative content about social or public services

while they watch TV. Not to lose any television

content, the platforms allows the seniors to

automatically pause the TV broadcast to watch an

informative video and then continue watching the

linear broadcast. These informative videos are

divided into seven areas of general interest named

ASGIE (Silva et al., 2017), which include Healthcare

and Welfare services, Social services, Financial

services, Culture services, Security services,

Transport services and Local authority services. In

addition, the +TV4E platform features a video library

which aggregates every informative video sent to the

user and a video recommendation algorithm, used to

determine which videos should be sent to each user.

The project intends to offer seniors an easier way to

access information about public and social services,

contributing to a more independent way of living.

This project was developed in collaboration with

several groups of seniors who took part in iterative

design sessions and usability tests, to evaluate a high-

fidelity prototype of the product.

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Active Aging

The term active aging was adopted in 2002 by the

World Health Organization, they advocated that in

order for older people to maintain a good quality of

life, a lengthier lifespan must be accompanied by

continuous opportunities in health, security, and

participation.

These three concepts are defined as the pillars of

what constitutes active aging and encourages

individuals, throughout their life course, to realize

their potential for physical, social, and mental

wellbeing and to participate in society, while

providing them the adequate protection, security, and

care, when needed (Kalache and Gatti, 2002). The

quality of life of the elderly depends on the risks and

opportunities they experience over their life course,

as well as the support provided by other generations

(Kalache and Gatti, 2002). Active aging allows

people to keep their sense of purpose and belonging

after they become retired, disabled or incapacitated,

encouraging them to play an active role in their

respective families, communities, and social groups.

This approach followed by the World Health

Organization has based the recognition of senior’s

human rights and the principles of independence,

participation, dignity, care, and self-realization

defined by the United Nations (Fredvang and Biggs,

2012). This concept is pioneer when it comes to the

recognition of the aging population as an important

global phenomenon, it encourages people to work for

longer and to retire later or to engage in volunteer

work after retirement, thus maintaining healthy and

independent lives. Making sure seniors continue to

have access to means that allow them to age in a

healthy and autonomous way, is one of the great

challenges of public health (Rosenberg et al., 2013).

Technologies can provide the senior population

with several benefits, helping them to maintain a

higher quality of life for longer. Over time, several

innovative technologies have emerged in the fields of

medicine, robotics, assisted living mediated by

sensors (Rosenberg et al., 2013). However,

developing technologies for seniors can become a

tricky process because, ultimately, their adoption

relies on the senior’s capacity to understand and adapt

to them. It is important to never forget that this

audience may have low levels of digital literacy and

therefore can be less prepared to handle complex

digital tasks, so these technologies need to be adapted

to seniors instead of forcing seniors to adapt to them.

2.2 Mobile Interfaces for Seniors

When developing software for older people it is

necessary to accommodate all the physiological

changes that occur with aging, which cause them to

Development and UI/UX Testing of an iTV Companion Application for Seniors

125

need a higher degree of support in executing tasks and

activities (Eisma et al., 2004). It is often hard for

seniors to get used to new technologies, however, one

of the major causes for the low levels of technology

acceptance comes from developers neglecting their

accessibility issues on the application’s design

process (Holzinger et al., 2007). In 2006, Hawthorn

highlights in his investigation “Designing Effective

Interfaces for Older Users” (Hawthorn, 2006), that

despite his users having ages between 65 and 85 years

old, their numeric age was somewhat insignificant.

The most important factor was the manifestation of

the effects caused by aging, such as loss of vision and

memory, as well as the decrease in learning speed.

Most digital interfaces are not designed considering

the sensory, physical and cognitive constraints of

seniors (Pereira, 2013). Loss of hearing and visual

acuity, for example, are factors that need to be

considered when developing software for seniors.

Reis and colleges (Reis et al., 2017) provide a good

basis for this study by proposing guidelines to ensure

high levels of usability among senior users. The loss

of visual acuity causes seniors to have difficulty in

focusing at short distances, distinguishing small

details, discriminating chromatic differences and

reading moving text. Additionally, it lowers their

adaptability to lighting, what makes them more

susceptible to brightness and requires for them to be

in a more luminous space when performing tasks such

as reading. To work around these visual impairments

there are various solutions that ensure that the

software is designed appropriately. Guidelines

suggest that the onscreen text should be at least 40pts,

the fonts should not have serifs, italic or other

decorative elements, the text should be aligned to the

left, the spacing between lines needs to guarantee

fluidity and readability and there should be high

contrast between the background and the text. Titles

and labels especially should be large and easy to read.

Regarding iconography, icons should be easily

distinguishable, the use of abstract concepts or any

current graphical conventions associated with the ICT

should be avoided and most importantly, as a failsafe,

be composed of a combination of text plus an image,

where the text helps reinforce the meaning of the

icon. The colours are also another important aspect to

consider and should be chosen carefully to account

for the limited colours spectrum seniors perceive and

the fact that colours never look alike in different

screens. Physical challenges of using technology,

sceptical attitudes regarding the benefits of

technology, complex security settings and even the

complexity of basic online services related with social

security, finances, or health services emerge as

potentially dissuasion factors for the use of ICT by

seniors. To some extent, this situation may contribute

to the seniors’ info exclusion (Verona et al., 2006).

When working on strategies designed to promote

the access of information by seniors, it is important to

understand them and be aware of their information

consumption habits. With these concepts in mind, the

+TV4E team sought to provide the users of the

platform with an alternative way of consuming

information with the addition of a mobile application.

Currently, the platform was designed only with the

TV as a medium of delivering informative content

regarding social and public services to seniors, so the

inclusion of a mobile application in the +TV4E

ecosystem aimed to further expand the reach of the

platform so that it can better serve the needs of

seniors.

3 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

OF THE FIRST PROTOTYPE

The design and development process of the mobile

application was divided into three steps, the definition

of the functional and technical requirements, the

design of the interface and finally the

implementation. The first step, defining the

functional requirements, was arguably the most

important step in this process, since, it was necessary

to find a balance between the iTV and the mobile

applications in order for the mobile application to

serve as a complement and not a replacement to the

+TV4E iTV platform. To accomplish this objective,

the mobile application was planned to take advantage

of the functionalities available on smartphones that

are not available in most TVs, namely having a

keyboard, which allows for easier typing, touch

controls, a microphone, a camera and most

importantly being portable. Therefore the following

functional requirements were defined:

a) Scan QR codes for a simplified user login

b) Allow the user to access his/her video library

c) Enable the user to watch informative videos on the

smartphone

d) Allow the user to select a video and watch it on

the TV

e) Allow the user to search videos on his/her video

library

f) Provide the user with recommended videos for his

profile

g) Allow the user to use voice commands to interact

with the TV

h) Include a tutorial to help the users

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Considering these requirements, the +TV4E mobile

application was designed to work as both as a second-

screen application, for when the user is watching TV

at his home, and as a standalone application to watch

informative videos when he’s outside. So the

application would allow the user to browse his

personal video library anywhere, thus being fully a

functional way to watch informative videos when

he’s away from the TV, but also allow the user to

interact with the TV by using the application to search

for and push videos to the TV.

Next, it was necessary to define the technical

requirements that would allow for the implementation

of the features listed above. The following technical

requirements were defined for the mobile application:

a) Run on Android smartphones

b) Be able to communicate with the set-top box

c) Be able to access the internet

d) Be able to access the smartphone’s camera and

microphone

e) Feature touch controls

Since developing for both Android and iOS was more

time consuming, Android was chosen as the target

platform in order to save resources, since it is easy to

deploy applications to any Android device, while for

iOS either the application needs to be published in the

app store or the device needs to be configured to allow

the installation of unverified applications.

Furthermore, Android devices are vastly more

common than their iOS counterpart, so it would not

negatively affect the gathering of participants to test

the application. It was also important that the mobile

application was able to directly communicate with the

set-top box in order to function as a companion

application for when the user is watching TV, as well

as connect to the internet in order to stream the

informative videos, access the smartphone’s

microphone to record the user’s voice during voice

commands and the smartphone’s camera to scan the

QR codes.

After establishing the functional and technical

requirements the design process of the interface

began, the goal was to keep the layout as simple as

possible while accommodating all the features in a

clear and visible way. Simplicity was the focus since

familiarity with technology usually decreases with

age and seniors tend to avoid technology when the

product is too complicated for them. Individual

abilities decline with old age, especially vision, since

the eyes lose its ability to focus quickly or to react to

rapidly-changing brightness it is important to

accommodate these limitations in the design. Seniors

often also cannot see thin lines or other fine details in

interfaces and have difficulty distinguishing between

similar icons, therefore, the interface was kept as

clean and simple as possible consisting only of two

main screens (“Library” and “Recommendations”)

the login screen, a menu, a tutorial and a total of only

three icons. The “Library” screen aggregates all the

videos sent to the user in the last 15 days in a vertical

list ordered by the most recent, each video is

presented as a card, similarly to the Youtube™

mobile application, containing the title, the duration,

the date it was sent and a thumbnail representing the

area of interest of the video. By clicking on the card,

the user is shown an on-screen prompt which asks

him if he wants to watch the video on the smartphone

or the TV. Additionally, this screen contains a search

bar which allows the user to find videos by their title

which is represented by a magnifying glass icon. The

“Recommendations” screen follows the same layout

of the previous screen, however, it displays a

maximum of six videos suggested by the +TV4E

recommendation system and it does not feature a

search bar since the video list is much smaller. To

implement the login in a simplified manner a QR code

was added to the set-top boxes which contained the

serial number of the box, this way if a user needed to

scan the QR code located on top of the box, thus

removing the need to remember a username and

password combination. The menu was positioned at

the top of the screen, to avoid having the user

accidentally clicking on it while scrolling, and

featured two buttons which served both as shortcuts

to navigate between the two main screens and to let

the user know which screen he was navigating since

the selected screen was highlighted. Finally, on the

bottom right of the screen, two buttons were

positioned, the “Help” button was represented by a

question mark icon and opened the tutorial and the

“Voice” button allowed the user to issue a voice

commands to the ITV application. The result is seen

in Figure 1 below, in which the basic navigation flow

is depicted.

Figure 1: First prototype screens.

Development and UI/UX Testing of an iTV Companion Application for Seniors

127

Afterward, it was necessary to choose a

technological solution that would allow the creation

of a high-fidelity prototype that would accurately

represent the final product. Since the project

programmers were used to developing Javascript web

applications the chosen framework was Ionic, an

open-source software development kit built on

AngularJS, this framework allows the development of

hybrid mobile applications using web technologies

such as HTLM5 and CSS. The development followed

the specifications stated previously, with the two

main screens and a tutorial area, the voice commands

were implemented using Google’s Speech to Text

service and the interaction with the set-top box was

done by sending HTTP requests to the +TV4E web

API which then communicated with the box via a

socket connection (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: +TV4E mobile system architecture.

In the next section, the methodology used to

evaluate the mobile application is described in detail,

going over the objectives of the study, the sample, and

the testing process.

4 METHODOLOGY

The current study’s purpose is to study the inclusion

of a mobile application and assess its added value in

the already existing +TV4E platform, by determining

if mobile devices are an appropriate medium for the

project for the senior audience. In order to accomplish

this task first, it was necessary to decide a set of

methods and scales that can provide accurate results

in assessing the usability and the user-experience of

the mobile application, as well as being appropriate to

be applied with the target demographic. The present

section describes this process, going over the

objective, the sample and detailing the entire process.

4.1 Objectives

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate

the usability and user-experience of the +TV4E

mobile application, which would serve as a

component of the iTV application being developed

under the +TV4E project. The development of this

mobile application was self-proposed by the research

team, rather than being an idea proposed during the

participatory design sessions of the +TV4E project,

however, despite this, the literature strongly suggests

that the best way to develop software solutions for the

senior population is to work closely with the target

demographic. By engaging seniors in key

development steps it is easier to create a solution that

better suits the needs of this population, which often

has difficulties handling newer technologies.

The +TV4E mobile application serves a similar

purpose to the video library present in the iTV

application, which allows users to watch videos on-

demand, thus giving some control over which content

the users want to see, as opposed to the way videos

are automatically sent to users while watching the

regular television broadcast in the iTV Application.

In both the library and the mobile application, the

users can re-watch videos they already saw or catch

up on videos they missed or ignored while watching

TV, however in the latter the users are given a higher

degree of control since they can also watch suggested

videos based on their usage of the platform. These

suggested videos are provided by the

recommendation system, which is also used when

choosing which video should be sent to each user

(Campelo et al., 2017). Additionally, the mobile

application provides the users with a search feature to

find videos more quickly, allowing them to watch

videos either on their smartphones or in the TV and

also to interact with the iTV application via voice

commands. These voice commands only allow the

user to perform a very limited amount of actions,

namely selecting the next higher or lower channel,

changing to a specific TV channel given its name or

number, and accessing the video library. This feature

was implemented due to the rising popularity of voice

assistants in the market, such as Siri, Alexa and

Google Assistant, which made the research team

consider including them in the mobile application in

order to assess how the senior population would react

to them in a TV ecosystem.

However similar in terms of functionality, the

mobile application greatly differs from the video

library when it comes to its interface and user

experience especially since it is developed on for a

different platform with a vastly different interaction

paradigm, therefore the need to perform new tests to

validate it with seniors. The key elements in need of

validation were the navigation, the interface, the

voice commands and the general receptiveness for

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this technology to be integrated into the +TV4E

platform.

4.2 Sample

The sample for this study was divided into two

groups, a first group to perform a preliminary

usability analysis, which aimed at finding key

usability issues in the application (Nielsen and

Molich, 1990), and a second group to participate in a

Focus Group.

The first sample group was composed of five

individuals of the Senior University of Curia, four

females (80%) and one male (20%), with an average

age of 71.4 years, four of these individuals completed

a higher education degree while the fifth only

completed middle school. The only requirements to

participate in this sample were being at least 60 years

old, which is a limit stipulated by the +TV4E project,

having a basic knowledge on how to use a smartphone

since the application was being designed for users

who already use a smartphone on a daily basis, and

being familiar with the +TV4E project. This sample

was inquired regarding their smartphone usage, none

of them required help while using their smartphones,

four users (80%) used an Android device while one

(20%) used an iOS device and the average time spent

user their phone per day was 1.1 hours. Lastly, the

participants were asked about which actions they

perform using their smartphones, the results are

shown in the following table (Table 1):

Table 1: Smartphone usage for the first sample group.

Smartphone usage n %

(1) Making phone calls 5 100

(2) Sending text messages 5 100

(3) Reading news 3 60

(4) Using social networks 2 40

(5) Play games 1 20

As expected all users use their smartphones to make

phones calls and send text messages, which are the

most basic features of all smartphones, however the

more advanced features, which require a higher level

of proficiency, were less prevalent in this sample.

This group also participated in the focus group.

4.3 Tests

After the design and development process was

concluded, the next step was the evaluation of the

mobile application’s first prototype in a controlled

environment with a sample of five users to find the

major flaws in its design. To accomplish this, the

application was presented to the first sample group

composed of students of the Senior University of

Curia. The first testing phase was divided into two

parts, initially, the application was presented to each

participant which then tested it individually during a

cognitive walkthrough and then all the participants

were gathered to discuss their experiences in a focus

group. After this phase, various improvements will be

made in the mobile application considering the data

gathered. The team plans to carrier a second phase of

tests in the homes of a second sample group to

evaluate the solution in a real context of use using the

entire +TV4E platform, being followed by interviews

and a focus group in the end. The entire process that

the team aims to develop is represented in Figure 3.

The 1

test phase was already carried out and will be

described in greater detail in the following sections.

Figure 3: Mobile application test phases.

4.3.1 Controlled Environment Tests

This phase began by contextualizing the participants

regarding the test they were about to take part in,

reminding them about the +TV4E project, since all of

them took part in previous data gatherings, explaining

that their participation was voluntary and that the data

collected would remain anonymous and would not be

disclosed. Afterward, the participants signed the

informed consent to take part in the study and their

demographic data was collected, the participants were

asked their age, gender and level of education,

followed by a survey regarding their smartphone

usage habits, on which they were asked what device

they use, their daily average use and which tasks they

perform regularly with the smartphone.

Next, each participant was given a brief

explanation of the application’s features,

emphasizing the fact that it mostly consisted of a

complement to the iTV application they tested

previously, and then took part in a cognitive

walkthrough. This test was composed of 14 tasks

which aimed at evaluating key aspects of the interface

and layout of the application. The tasks were the

following:

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129

1. Open the +TV4E mobile application

2. Read the application’s user guide

3. Login using the provided QR code

4. Access the help menu and review the

application’s user guide

5. Count the number of videos in the list “My

Videos”

6. Point out when the 3rd video of the list was added

7. Use the search function to search for the video

“USF Almada”

8. Watch on the smartphone the video you searched

9. Close the video you are watching

10. Switch to the list “Recommended Videos”

11. Point out the duration of the 2nd video in the list

12. Chose a video from the list and watch it on the

television

13. Click on the microphone button and use a voice

command to change the TV channel

14. Use a voice command to access the video library

During the execution of these tasks, a researcher filled

a performance evaluation chart where it was

registered whether the task was successfully

completed or not, the number of mistakes, the

execution time and potential observations. The

participants were encouraged to perform the tasks

independently, thus the researcher gave as little

instructions as possible and instead just motivated

them to keep trying. However, if the participant

decided to give up it the solution would be explained

to him while he explained why he could not finish the

task since some tasks required the completion of

previous ones. After concluding the tasks, the

participants were asked to fill out a Self-Assessment

Manikin test.

After each participant tested the application

individually, the entire sample was gathered for a

focus group where they were encouraged to discuss

which aspects of the mobile application they

considered to need improvements, which features

should be included to this initial prototype and if they

found the application useful or not. The focus group

was structured to discuss these three aspects and

included the following open-ended questions:

1. Did you consider that the +TV4E mobile

application could be an added value for you to

stay informed?

2. Do you consider that being able to access the

+TV4E platform outside your home is useful?

3. Do you think that the mobile application should

include more information, such as weather

forecasts?

4. Do you consider useful having the

“Recommended Videos” list?

5. Did you have any problems navigating in the

application?

6. Did you have trouble reading the text in the

application or understanding the iconography?

7. Did you find the voice commands useful?

All the participants were given an opportunity to

express their opinions as well as discuss among

themselves their user experience, this step was

considered crucial for this early testing since it

provided a very direct feedback of the main problems

found in the application at the moment.

All the data gathered was compiled and used to fix

the most recurring problems in the application, as

well as to improve the current layout in order to better

suit the target audience needs, all these changes are

detailed in the following subsection.

4.3.2 Bug Fixing and Improvements

The first phase of testing proved to be very successful

in determining the key problems in the current

prototype, in total nine issues were found in the

application which needed to be addressed before the

next testing phase. The majority of these issues were

obtained through direct user feedback while some of

them were inferred by the research team, they were

divided into three categories, issues reported directly

by the users, issues identified by the researcher during

the user testing and software issues. The complete

results are detailed in the “Results and Discussion”

section, however, the changes made to address these

issues will be listed below for the sake understanding

the differences between the two prototypes.

Starting with the user reported problems, the most

frequent issue, which occurred in all user tests, was

the fact the users were assuming that the duration of

the video was instead the time at which it was added.

To fix this, the duration was moved to fit inside the

ASGIE icon, the sent date was aligned to the right

while the name of the ASGIE was included and

aligned to the left to avoid a large blank space. The

majority of users complained that it was difficult for

them to exit a video while watching, so a button was

added to the top right corner of the screen with the

label “exit” which would only appear while a video

was being played. Also, regarding the video player, it

was decided to remove the player controls and only

keep the play/pause function by tapping the screen

since the users frequently clicked on the timeline by

accident. The contrast of the colours was slightly

altered to allow for better legibility since some users

complained it was too bright to read. Regarding the

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buttons, since most users found it difficult to

understand the chosen iconography for “Help” and

“Microphone” buttons, labels were added to them to

avoid confusion. Additionally, the overall size of all

buttons was increased since most users expressed

difficulty in pressing them. Beyond the issues

reported directly reported by the user, it was

identified that a search bar should also be present in

the “Recommended Videos” list both for consistency

and for times when there are several recommended

videos. Furthermore, the tutorial was also considered

not to be very useful since it lacked clear instructions

on how to use the application’s features, therefore it

was updated to include close-ups of each function and

text clearly explaining each one of them. The

improved prototype can be seen in Figure 4 that

depicts the more significant changes.

Figure 4: Improved mobile screens.

Finally, a couple of technical problems were

discovered during testing, the search bar did not

update when the user pressed the backspace and the

“Microphone” button was not properly requesting

permission to access the smartphone’s microphone,

needed for the voice commands. Both these issues

were fixed which lead to the second prototype of the

mobile application ready for testing in a new round of

tests.

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A total of 5 individuals took part in this study which

spawned across a testing phase and a Focus group.

The evaluation was composed by a cognitive

walkthrough, a SAM and a focus group. The results

of these moments with seniors are analysed in the

next section.

5.1 Cognitive Walkthrough

Performance

Almost all the tasks requested by the participants

were successfully concluded, as shown in Table 3.

The tasks with the highest and lowest success rates

are further analysed. Also, some additional

information observed in the performance evaluation

grid is provided to help understand the obtained

results.

Table 2: Results of the Cognitive Walkthrough (n=5).

Task Success (%) Run Time (s) Errors

T1. 80 16.4 1.25

T2. 80 41 1.8

T3. 100 9.2 0

T4. 60 44 2.4

T5. 100 15.4 0.2

T6. 100 5.8 1

T7. 80 76 1.6

T8. 100 6.6 0

T9. 80 20.6 1

T10 100 7.2 0

T11 100 3 0.2

T12 100 8.8 0.2

T13 100 34.4 1.4

T14 100 18.4 0.2

Looking at the results of the cognitive

walkthrough, out of the 14 tasks only 5 were not

successfully completed by all the users. Tasks 5, 6, 8,

10, 11, 12 were carried all without any issues by all

the users. Task 1 proved to be problematic for some

users for two reasons, two users complained the icon

was not easy to identify while a third had problems

since she was an iOS user and therefore was not used

to Android smartphones. Task 2 had a high rate of

success, but four users had some trouble

understanding they needed to swipe right to forward

the tutorial. Task 3 had a surprising 100% success rate

contrary to the team’s expectations, which were due

to the fact that seniors do not seem to be familiar with

QR code technology, however, since the process was

compared to taking a photo with the smartphone there

were no problems in this task. Task 4 displayed the

lowest success rate since three of the five users could

not identify the question mark icon as being the help

button, this was later fixed as described in the section

“Bug Fixing and Improvements”. Task 7 proved to be

somewhat difficult for three users, the users had no

trouble finding the search area, and however, they had

difficulty typing the title of the requested video. This

can be due to the smartphone used for testing being

different to the devices the users are used to type with.

Task 9 had a high success rate, however, the average

execution time was higher than expected since exiting

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the video should be a simple task, users reported that

using the smartphone’s back button was not an

intuitive way to exit the video since not all

smartphones have a back button and sometimes the

button is swapped with the overview button. Finally,

Tasks 13 and 14 had a 100% success rate despite all

the users claiming that they never used voice

commands previously, they reported this feature was

easy to use after understanding how to issue a voice

command which was reflected in a significantly lower

execution time average between Task 13 (t=34.4) and

Task 14 (t=18.4).

5.2 SAM

The SAM scale was applied at the end of the cognitive

walkthrough. SAM uses a pictorial scale that ranges

from 1 to 9 and where a high score (closer to 9 than

to 1) indicates better usability in terms of how the user

feels interacting with a certain system, in this case,

the mobile application. This evaluation tool focuses

on three items, namely pleasure, arousal, and

dominance. Figure 5 integrates the mean average

score obtained for each item.

Figure 5: First phase Self-Assessment Manikin results.

Analysing the results, it is clear that, the users

rated the application highly on all three items, arousal

and pleasure were especially high, which can be

attributed to the fact that the users where testing

technologies that are still relatively new to them,

especially the voice commands, which all five users

later reported to find very interesting. However, the

lowest score in dominance was the main take away

from this SAM, which cannot be dismissed and

reflected the usability problems already presented.

5.3 Focus Group

For the final step of this phase, all five participants

were gathered for the structured focus group

organized based on seven questions. The results of

this focus group were important to better understand

the biggest issues the user had while performing the

cognitive walkthrough, as well as gather suggestions

to fix these issues.

Regarding the added value of using the mobile

application to stay more informed, the participants

stated that adding a mobile component to the +TV4E

platform was a good idea, while another participant

stated that it could be hard for him to use it in his daily

life since he’s not used to mobile applications.

In regard to the usefulness of being able to access

the +TV4E platform outside their homes, the

participants said that they found it useful having the

platform available anywhere since they could watch

the informative videos as a way to pass the time while

also staying informed.

When asked if the mobile application should

include more information beyond the information

provided by the videos, they replied that it should also

contain information regarding public transports,

namely train schedules, information about the

weather, local shows, and other events.

Next, the participants were asked if they found the

“Recommended Videos” tab useful, which is a new

functionality to the +TV4E platform, they replied that

having more control over the videos they can watch

is a positive aspect and that the videos should be

recommended based on their search history. These

replies allude to the fact that some senior users enjoy

looking for the content they want to watch instead of

automatically receiving videos suggested by the

system.

The next question inquired the participants about

any navigational problems they had while testing the

mobile application, to which they replied that closing

the videos with the backspace was not intuitive and

needed to be changed. They also suggested adding a

small button on the screen to close the video.

Subsequently, the participants were questioned

about their opinions regarding the font and icons are

chosen for the mobile application, the font Tiresias

was considered to be easy to read, however, the users

requested that blue colours used in the menu should

have more contrast and that the icons needed

something to make their purpose more evident.

The final question inquired about the voice

commands, participants stated that they found them

very useful and even more practical than using the TV

remote, all the participants expressed some degree of

enthusiasm regarding the voice commands which

motivated the team to further test their potential

applications in the +TV4E platform.

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6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

Developing software that caters senior population

needs is a process that requires their direct

collaboration. In this work, by following a

participatory design philosophy it was possible to

vastly improve the initial proposal of the mobile

application to meet the target audience needs.

Although it is not possible to address the concerns of

every senior by keeping the general interface and

interaction paradigm simple it is possible to reach a

broad audience of older adults. The results from field

trials revealed that many of the issues present in the

first prototype were fixed since the data gathered in

the second phase of tests pointed towards higher

levels of usability in the prototype. However, it was

possible to identify several aspects that could still be

improved or added in future versions of the mobile

application. Notifications were a feature suggested by

some users that were not yet explored. Notifications

were considered as a way to remind the users to watch

videos they missed in television or to alert them that

new recommendations are available in the

“Recommended” tab. Additionally, the users stated

that it would be a suitable way to remind and motivate

people to use the mobile application and not just the

iTV application, so this feature will be considered for

future tests which would be used to assess the

frequency of these notifications and what information

should be notified. The voice commands were a small

feature included to test new ways for seniors to

interact with the iTV application, therefore this

functionality was very limited since it only allowed to

change the TV channels and access the video library.

Going forward, the team wants to explore this feature

in new ways in order to fully integrate it with the

+TV4E platform, for example by allowing the user to

ask for specific videos or search TV channels by

content, thus giving the users new ways to interact

with the TV.

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