Easierphone: Participative Development of a Senior-Friendly Smartphone Application

Sarah Speck, Cora Pauli, Cornelia Ursprung, Robert Huber, Katja Rießenberger, Sabina Misoch

2023

Abstract

Ageing and digitalization are two major developments of the 21st century. Particularly, smartphone ownership increased to about over 80 % globally. Meanwhile, smartphones also gained great popularity among older adults, nonetheless, many still show fear of contact. The multi-national project Easierphone aims at empowering older adults and other vulnerable persons to effectively use smartphones. A senior-friendly app, Easierphone, simplifies smartphones while replacing the common android interface with an easier-to-use one. In addition, the Easierphone app enables two smartphones to be connected remotely to facilitate virtual assistance. A participative design is applied to conduct tests with older adults in three different pilots, in three different countries. Semi-structured interviews, try-out of the app, individual follow-up discussions and co-creation workshops are conducted to collect data. The Easierphone app to date is received positively by potential end-users. Many of the diverse functionalities of the app could be improved with feedback from test participants. The development process is an iterative one, in between each pilot, to achieve best possible adjustments to the app. The preliminary results indicate that fear of contact still prevails, nonetheless. The simplified interface seems to provide a basis for older adults to use their smartphones with more confidence.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Speck S., Pauli C., Ursprung C., Huber R., Rießenberger K. and Misoch S. (2023). Easierphone: Participative Development of a Senior-Friendly Smartphone Application. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE, ISBN 978-989-758-645-3, SciTePress, pages 199-207. DOI: 10.5220/0011974400003476

in Bibtex Style

@conference{ict4awe23,
author={Sarah Speck and Cora Pauli and Cornelia Ursprung and Robert Huber and Katja Rießenberger and Sabina Misoch},
title={Easierphone: Participative Development of a Senior-Friendly Smartphone Application},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE,},
year={2023},
pages={199-207},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0011974400003476},
isbn={978-989-758-645-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health - Volume 1: ICT4AWE,
TI - Easierphone: Participative Development of a Senior-Friendly Smartphone Application
SN - 978-989-758-645-3
AU - Speck S.
AU - Pauli C.
AU - Ursprung C.
AU - Huber R.
AU - Rießenberger K.
AU - Misoch S.
PY - 2023
SP - 199
EP - 207
DO - 10.5220/0011974400003476
PB - SciTePress