ElderEase
An elder-friendly fitness application
**written by Sonali Patel (40176580) and Nirajkumar Patel (40180695)
Introduction
In an era where life expectancy has significantly increased, the disparity between lifespan and healthspan remains a critical concern, particularly among the elderly population. Despite advances in technology with the potential to enhance the quality of life for seniors, limited acceptance and adoption persist due to inadequate design tailored to their diverse needs and abilities.
The aging population faces challenges in using these technologies, primarily caused by the lack of adaptable and elder-friendly design. While some seniors exhibit growing familiarity and enthusiasm for mobile devices, the heterogeneous nature of this demographic poses considerable obstacles. The diversity in technological skills and the range of physical and cognitive capabilities among the elderly emphasize the importance of a nuanced design approach that caters to their varying needs and preferences.
Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the health concerns of the elderly, prompting increased reliance on digital platforms for healthcare management and access to essential resources. However, existing applications often overlook the specific needs of this vulnerable group, particularly regarding usability and accessibility.
Furthermore, many elderly individuals struggle to maintain sufficient physical activity levels, whether they reside at home or in nursing homes. Encouraging regular light exercise is crucial for their physical well-being. Unfortunately, current pervasive computing solutions fail to adequately address this need. By integrating tailored design principles into mobile applications, we can facilitate widespread adoption and effective use of technology to enhance the healthspan and overall well-being of the aging demographic. This necessitates a nuanced understanding of elderly users’ diverse needs and abilities, alongside innovative design strategies focused on improving usability, accessibility, and relevance.
Our Solution
To combat this challenge, our team endeavors to develop an elder-friendly fitness application, equipped with a plethora of features geared towards motivating seniors to maintain physical activity levels, irrespective of their location or age. Our app aims to educate the elderly population on straightforward stretches and light exercises, ensuring that their physical well-being remains uncompromised by periods of inactivity. Additionally, the application will incorporate a dedicated section aimed at guiding users through yoga and meditation practices, designed to provide support for their mental health needs.
Background Research
There are many fitness apps that are available to the public such as: apple’s fitness app, strava, nike training club, fitbit and many more. A good part of these fitness apps are catered to a younger audience and built for/around them. For example, nike training club and fitbit are apps that can be the most useful when pairing it with other smart devices like an apple watch. The design and aesthetics of these apps seem to look very professional and catered to athletes. Most of these apps are not beginner friendly and not the easiest to use. These apps have too much information and it gets overwhelming for the user and has a lot of unwanted features or information displayed to them.
Survey
To gain deeper insights into our target audience, we crafted an online questionnaire and enlisted the help of our friends and family to share it with the elderly individuals around them. This approach allows us to gather valuable feedback directly from the demographic we aim to serve, helping us better understand their needs and preferences.
To ensure simplicity and accessibility for older adults, our questionnaire consists solely of multiple-choice, checkbox, and binary questions. This approach eliminates any potential challenges for elders who may struggle with typing on their mobile devices, allowing them to easily navigate and respond to the survey without difficulty. Our goal is to streamline the process and make it as user-friendly as possible, enabling all participants to provide their valuable input effortlessly.
Results
From the data gathered in our survey, we made sure that it was intended for our target users, which are elderly. We can see that around 80% of the responses in our survey come from individuals that are 66 and above. This will help us pinpoint user’s needs and goals for our app.
Even though the use of smartphones is getting more and more popular, we can see that slightly over 70% of our audience are not using apps to track their physical health. With ElderEase we want to cut that percentage and make an app that is easy to use and practical to them.
Surprisingly, there is a vast majority of elderly people who are engaged in some sort of physical activity already based on our data. We can also see that some elders are not currently engaged. However, when asked about their willingness to engage in activities, all of them said yes and are willing to try different activities from what they are already engaged in.
When asked about data tracking, the data collected showed us that they would like vital information saved, most predominantly daily steps.
UX/UI Design Processes
User Personas
Introducing John Adams, our first user persona, representing a significant portion of our target audience. John is a recently retired man, reflective of the 64.7% male demographic identified in our survey. With 41.2% falling within the age range of 66 to 75 years old, John epitomizes this group’s characteristics. Moreover, as 53.5% of participants live at home according to our survey, John embodies the typical lifestyle and preferences of our surveyed audience. His persona serves as a guiding reference as we develop our application to cater effectively to the needs and habits of individuals like him.
Introducing Elizabeth James, our second user persona, representing a distinctive segment of our target audience. Elizabeth is a woman residing in a nursing home, reflecting the 35.3% female demographic identified in our survey. With 11.8% falling within the age range of 76 to 85 years old, Elizabeth embodies the characteristics of this particular group. Furthermore, as 33.3% of our survey participants live in nursing homes, Elizabeth’s persona encapsulates the unique needs and circumstances of individuals in such environments. Her persona provides valuable insights and contrasts with John’s persona, ensuring a diverse representation as we tailor our ElderEase application to meet the varying preferences and lifestyles of our users.
Sketch
Mockup
We chose a soothing colour palette primarily composed of soft pastel greens and earthy tones for our app design. These colours were selected because they are gentle on the eyes, particularly beneficial for elderly users. To ensure readability, we incorporated a darker shade of green for the written portions of the app, providing a strong contrast that enhances legibility. This thoughtful colour scheme aims to create a visually comfortable and user-friendly experience, prioritizing ease of use and accessibility for our elderly users.
In our application design, we prioritized readability and usability by incorporating large and simple fonts, ensuring easy legibility for all users. Additionally, we adopted a straightforward design approach to accommodate individuals who may be less familiar with mobile applications. Large buttons facilitate effortless navigation between pages, enhancing user experience.
Recognizing the potential challenges of password management for elderly users, we streamlined the login process. Users only need to input their unique username and birth year, eliminating the need for lengthy passwords. This approach minimizes cognitive load and frustration associated with remembering complex login credentials. Furthermore, we opted not to request email addresses to simplify the login process further, acknowledging that typing out lengthy email addresses can be complicated for elderly users. Our user-centric design choices aim to promote accessibility and ease of use, ensuring that all users can comfortably engage with our application.
The Figma prototype can be found here, and an example video can be found below.
User Flow Diagrams
The user flow diagram to log activity details for the progress charts:
The user flow diagram to update the daily medication/water intake:
Featured Implementation and Conclusion
To conclude, our goal with the design of our elder-friendly app called ElderEase was to bring a different approach on how seniors can take advantage of technology and get fit at the same time. With our clean and minimalist design, we implemented simple and straight to the point UI/UX designs. We made it easy to navigate and log in for older people by simply using their birth year and a username without having to remember a password. We developed a homepage that is easy on the eyes with just the basic and relevant information of their health. Our goal was to have a search option that would help the user’s needs and find exactly what they want, so we pre-categorized each physical activity. This will allow them to save time and find exactly what they are looking for in a video format that they would be able to add/save to their favorites tab that can be accessible at any time.