Designing mobile phone interface for active seniors: User study in Czech Republic

We deal with the problem of designing user interface for mobile phones with respect to special needs of seniors. We conducted qualitative study (n = 5) followed by quantitative one (n = 118). From the comparison of our study with existing studies we observed an obvious trend in more extensive usage of advanced features, which cannot be explained only by the shift of the younger seniors to older age groups. We concluded that designing phones with few basic features is a wrong approach. To support needs of seniors we must design phones with rich set of advanced features but with much more intuitive and ergonomic user interfaces than those that are currently available.