Elderly people use smartphones often, however, they face many problems while doing so. Understanding these problems can help in teaching the elderly to use technology. App developers can consider the following points when developing apps to make them user-friendly for elderly users too.

Here are 7 problems the elderly face when using smartphones.

1. They cannot tap properly

First of all, they have a problem tapping. Tapping is a basic operation for most applications, but the following problems occur when they try to tap.

• They push with their nails
• Push too hard or the area of ​​the finger touching the screen is too large
• They cannot press where they aimed
• Their finger slips after touching the screen
• They touch the screen for a long time

As a result, they have problems navigating on smartphone screens. Operations other than taps such as flicks might be more difficult.

Also, for fingerprint authentication, a hand-stroked PIN might be better if they find it difficult to register their fingerprints.

2. The elderly cannot locate buttons on smartphone screens

Today’s smartphone apps have a lot of flat designs. So it’s hard to tell where they can press or what happens after pressing.

Even if you express a button with an icon, you may need to consider how it works together with the icon. For example “< Back” .

Also, older people might not be familiar with words such as “edit”, “registration”, etc. Wording such as “write text” may be better than “edit”.

3. Screen transitions may confuse them

Even if they learn how to use phones. They might get confused if the transitions are different from usual. They will not know what to do in such cases.

Consider this example:

• The application starts normally and is ready to use. However, sometimes the session is disconnected and the login screen appears.
• The first launch will show the tutorial but it will not appear on the next launch

4. Smartphone advertisements can confuse the elderly

When an interstitial advertisement etc. appear:

• It is different from normal screen transition
• It’s a screen they have never seen

So they get confused.

In addition, they might also think banner ads that appear in the footer and other places are a part of the application.

5. Notifications can be confusing too

The app notification displays at the top of the screen. But it pops out and disappears after you have checked the text. So they might not know how to check again.

If they tap the notification, they end up on a different app. Then they will be puzzled because it corresponds to the previous issue since the screen transition is different.

6. They cannot remember login information

They do not remember the login information and the account they use for each service, for example

• Account ID
• Google account
• Facebook account
• Twitter handles etc

This causes them problems when logging in etc.

7. It is hard to remember words and concepts

They might not remember concepts even if they were taught many times due to weak memory.

Extras

Too many browser tabs are open

Sometimes they end up opening a lot of tabs in the browser to the point where it crashes or they cannot open any more tabs.

They may not know the concept of tabs/windows. Nor they may know how to close windows. This happens less often if the websites have a simple design.

Finally

These were some of the issues that elderly people face while using smartphones. Application developers can consider them while making applications targetted at an older audience. People involved in education may also find it useful.

We can have a look at how to resolve some of these issues in later blog posts.
What do you think? Please leave a comment!