Mobile Application Development for Senior Citizens

Aged care is a significant issue which concerns all governments. In order to provide assistance and provide quality of life to senior citizens, enormous resources are invested by the government each year. A significant proportion of the investment is used to provide a range of services for senior citizens who stay at home. Since providing quality aged care is an ongoing and complex process, there is a desperate need to develop innovative solutions, which will benefit society at large. Although modern information technology products are changing the lifestyle of younger generations, they have much less impact on old people. This research therefore undertakes a novel study into the question of: What mobile applications can be developed on smartphone devices to improve senior citizens’ quality of lives. By using a requirement framework developed from the literature, this study also explored the availability and suitability of current mobile applications which are available from IPhone Application shops, Nokia OVI stores and other sources in order to identify possible directions for future mobile application development for aged care purposes.