Guidelines for the Design of Text Entry Applications for Older Adults

Abstract

The care and monitoring of the health of the elderly in order to increase life expectancy, their safety, make them self-sufficient, and improve their quality of life, have been the focus of many investigations that involve the use of the Internet of the Things or Internet of Things (IoT). Likewise, many of these systems, social networks and communication tools, are making it necessary for older people to be interested in the use of smartphones or Smartphones, which has inspired to carry out this work, whose objective is to determine the guidelines for the design of text entry applications for older adults.

Some works carried out by other authors were considered to obtain the guidelines used for the development of a prototype (called KeySenior) focused on the entry of text, applying the guidelines considered positive for our purpose. The prototype was tested through a user study with a very heterogeneous group of elderly people, from their socio-economic level, the frequency of use and type of mobile phone, to the pathologies they suffer from. They finally answered a questionnaire with the help of one of the researchers, who also took notes of the most important observations, to help to determine the degree of fulfillment of the objective of this work. Some of the guidelines implemented in KeySenior did not have the expected acceptance, however most of them had great acceptance.