Increasing independence for older adults who need technology support

Technology is being used in many instances of daily life, often replacing offline products and services that older adults would traditionally be used to. While the attitudes towards technology are generally positive, older adults often require frequent assistance with technology support. This negatively impacts their ability to be independent and adopt technology easily. The research presented here takes a user-centred design approach to understanding the possible issues older adults may face when trying to access technology support. We conducted focus groups with both younger and older adults to understand the problem space from multiple perspectives, and designed a prototype system to help older adults access technology on their own which also met their usability and accessibility needs. Evaluation of the system provided a positive response from all participants with seven of eight participants being able to complete all assigned tasks using the ‘Helper’ system.