Designing a digital interface for illiterate senior users

Abstract

If the majority of today's digital devices rarely consider the physical and cognitive characteristics of the senior population, hindering their access to the benefits provided by Information and Communication Technology, for illiterate senior citizens, the digital divide constitutes an insurmountable barrier. In this paper we intend to explore the feasibility of creation of digital products tailored to illiterate senior users using a user-centered design approach, through the creation of a tablet app for asynchronous audiovisual communication as a case study. Preliminary results of this research account for the receptivity by the senior for the learning and use of the device as well as the relevance about the use of participatory design techniques to inform the design of the artifact; however, the brevity of this study did not allow to draw conclusions about the capability of the seniors for the creation of a suitable mental model for the device.