Mobile Phones for the Elderly: a design framework

Globally people are living longer. The elderly, defined as people over 65 for the purpose of this study, have recognised physical and cognitive limitations which can lead to their marginalisation as far as information and communication technology is concerned. To enable the aging population to live productively and independently, their technological needs, expectations and limitations warrant intervention. The elderly living in rural areas of Southern Africa rely on private mobile phone access as their main and often only means of participating in the activities of the global village. The academic literature provides a variety of guidelines to support the design and evaluation of mobile phones, and guidelines to inform the process of technology design for the elderly. Yet, no frameworks to guide the specific evaluation and design of mobile phones for the elderly in developing countries are evident. This paper presents a comprehensive framework called RoADMaP (fRAmework for Design of Mobile Phones for seniors) which integrates the existing literature related to the design and evaluation of mobile phone models for the elderly and then uses data gathered in two separate locations (South Africa and Scotland) to augment and verify existing guidelines. We demonstrate the validity of this framework by applying it to a four-year longitudinal mobile phone usage pattern comparison for the period 2009 to 2012. The value of the framework lies in the potential to Steyn, J., Van der Vyver, A.G. (eds.). (2013). Public and private access to ICTs in developing regions. Proceedings of the 7th International Development Informatics Association Conference, held in Bangkok, Thailand. ISBN: 978-0-620-58040-3 Pages 85-102 85 support private communication access and services for the elderly in developing countries where there may not be any public access.