Research on the Age-Appropriate Design of Mobile Phone APPs Based on the Experience of Using Smartphones for Chinese Young-Old

Abstract

With the development of “intelligent” society, smart terminals have been used in many occasions of daily life. Smart phones have become an extension of people, which is an indispensable medium that people connect with each other and the society. Currently, among the 274 million elderly mobile phone users in China, 134 million are elderly smartphone users. Nearly 140 million seniors are connected to the Internet through smartphones. Through an online questionnaire survey on smartphone use experience for young-old, this paper attempts to investigate the actual needs and difficulties of young-old in the use of smartphones, and the preference of this group for the age-appropriate design of mobile phones. Based on the 500 valid samples of the survey, we found that the young-old tend to actively learn the use of mobile phones, but the current smartphone APPs does not take into account the special need of the young-old, and the adaptability of the touch-screen experience. We suggest that it’s necessary to consider the need of the old users in terms of functions, interfaces, menu settings, so as to improve the willingness of the old to use mobile APPS and improve the effect of human-computer interaction.