Systems Thinking: Seniors digital experience and interactions with mobile applications

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7 min readJun 10, 2020

The following design project report is authored by Ruchika Atre under the Systems Thinking Module at the National Institute of Design, Bangalore.

Name: Ruchika Atre

Discipline: Interaction Design (2019–2021)

Mentors: Ms. Mamata N. Rao and Jagriti Galphade

Institute: National Institute of Design, Bangalore

Introduction

With the grand demographic dividend and 50% of India’s population being below 25 years of age, the youth segment of the country has been viewed as an obvious target for the dazzling array of digital devices, apps, and tools. [source: Thefinancialexpress.com] . The large segment comprising senior citizens numbering over 110 million, has a literacy rate of 44% and the penetration of mobile phones and internet access in this segment has been growing.

The user experience of this age group is very different from that of other generations and therefore appreciating their physical and mental state would be essential for designing the user interfaces and the applications.

Digital empowerment can pave the way to get them connected on the internet and provide them with opportunities to share their knowhow or competencies with the younger generation through proper access.

Design Research: Primary and Secondary

As part of the design research to understand the usability patterns of senior participants, 7 participants (age range of 52–70) with varied demographics backgrounds were interviewed along with observational and contextual inquiry. The participatory approach was taken as well where participants were asked to perform certain tasks over the mobile applications on their respective mobile phones.

Mobile Applications: To get a better idea of the usage patterns, I shortlisted 2 popular mobile applications used for web search and instant messaging respectively i.e Google Search and Whatsapp.

Design Research Methods

User Interviews
Focus Group
Participatory Research
Observational and Contextual Inquiry

Design Research Analysis

High User engagement with platforms like YouTube, WhatsApp, and Google Search.
Users are not able to access the full functionality of the applications.
All the participants have vision-related issues.
Not able to understand and utilize the application to upload personal content.
Users have less information over the secondary features of the applications.
Voice search proved to be a useful tool, but only 40% had prior knowledge or experience with it, the remaining were not familiar with it nor they even tried exploring this option unless external instructions were provided.
User of this age group are fairly passive and highly dependent on younger family members for help to achieve their task
Confusion with navigation and interactions.
Certain interactions like the long press to record audio on WhatsApp was difficult to comprehend by the users.
Distinguishing between visual elements like emojis is difficult, a High level of misinterpretations.
Search Engines like google are not user friendly for such user groups — too much of information links, formats, and colors adds on to the cognitive load — Identification of the desired information gets difficult.
Applications go underutilized and their user experience is comprised due to lack of knowledge and awareness.

Iceberg Model Analysis

To get deeper insights and understanding of the user patterns, the underlined structure, and core mental models of the users, I listed the tasks given to the users during participatory research as events.

Iceberg Model Key Insights

Seniors follow more of a linear approach than the younger counterparts who follow a parallel approach to achieve a task.
Seniors like engaging with modern-day mobile applications.
Usability and technical issues acts as a hindrance to the application experience.
Memory levels plays a role in the usability.
They feel that certain features and symbols are not meant for them but kids, also 80% of the emojis are untouched and unused by the users.
Fear, resistance, and apprehension to navigate or explore the application prevail, Unless guided or given assurance that it is safe to perform.
Failed attempts to act as a demotivating factor, which leads to withdrawal behavior from the user.
Poor Navigation skills impact the overall user experience of seniors and act as a demotivating factor to proceed with the task/goal.
Senior user groups are highly dependent on even simple digital tasks upon the younger family members or any other external guidance.
User group of this age feels that these applications are greater than there ability and not meant for them.

Systems Thinking — Macro Perspective

As part of the systems thinking approach, the topic was analysis on a macro level with the following steps-

System Gaps

The current socializing applications are targeted for young users/millennials
The Non-Universal Structure of Navigational elements and Icons of current applications is not intuitive and cause confusion for seniors with poor short term memory.
The senior's user group is dependent on the primary stakeholder's physical availability while using digital applications.
None or very few applications are tailor-made for seniors user groups.
Mobile Application companies target all the user groups under one umbrella hence making a single user experience with limited or no inbuilt accessibility features to help the seniors.
The inability to understand the digital space and poor interactions leads to macro problems like frauds, Fake Content Circulation, Depression, Social Isolation.
Business do not tap the growing potential with the senior user groups
Users personal goals and aspirations are not focussed upon.

User Persona

Existing User Scenario

Solution Set

Based on the understanding and analysis from design research, the iceberg model, and studying the whole system at a macro level, I came up with a set of design solutions to mitigate the gaps of the systems and minimize users pain points.

Final Concept

Out of all the proposed solutions I picked out the ones most relevant to the user's problems and which had the potential to cover larger user sects and the corresponding problems. The concept is of a digital platform that focuses on the below key areas as its min features: