Designing and testing homecare4all: A ehealth mobile app for elderly

Abstract

Aging population implies an increase in demand for health care services. This hopefully could be solved by e-health, even if some issues arise about technology acceptance and adoption among the elderly. In this article, the authors illustrate HomeCare4All project as a case study to apply Human Centered Design (HCD) process in the field of digital health services, aiming at design trustworthy mobile applications for elderly people to book healthcare services at home. Starting from the results achieved from the early step of design, this paper describes the following steps of the creation of a design solution by identifying use cases, defining information architecture and prototyping an app mockup. The prototypes are then evaluated through a double usability test sessions with users, implementing an iterative design process. In conclusion authors advance suggestions for designing trustworthy mobile interactions for elderly people or people unaccustomed to technology, showing the importance of involving end users in the various stages of the design process.