KoalaPhone: touchscreen mobile phone UI for active seniors

Abstract

We deal with a problem of designing a user interface for touchscreen phones with respect to special needs of seniors. We conducted qualitative study (\(\hbox {n}=5\)) followed by quantitative one (\(\hbox {n}=118\)). From the comparison of our study with existing studies we observed an obvious trend in more extensive usage of advanced features, which cannot be explained only by the shift of the younger seniors to older age groups. We provided a set of recommendations and we designed a new touchscreen phone user interface to support needs of active seniors. In comparison (\(\hbox {n}=15\)) with standard Android UI our solution had higher completion rate in two of four complex tasks and 6\(\times \) higher completion rate of all tasks while producing 2.4\(\times \) fewer errors. Our interface was subjectively perceived more comfortable, efficient and producing less errors.