How to Make Wellness App for Elderly User-Friendly? Tips from Designers and Engineers
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Recent years have seen a surge in the number of wellness applications. In 2023 alone, the market size of health and wellness apps was estimated at 49.7 billion USD, with a great variety of apps for users to enjoy.
Most wellness apps are targeted at either the general audience or specifically at fitness enthusiasts — but there seems to be a gap in the market of apps that offer wellness services geared toward senior citizens.
The popular prejudice towards older adults is that they have little to no understanding of new technologies. While it was true ten years ago, meeting a tech-savvy senior today is not a surprise. But how is developing wellness apps for elderly people any different from other software development projects? Let’s talk about it.
Understanding the Needs of Senior Users
When developing wellness apps for seniors, it’s crucial that you put yourself in their shoes. You need to grasp the unique challenges and preferences of older adults to create a truly useful and accessible product. Let’s dive into some key considerations that’ll help you nail it with this demographic.
Physical Limitations
As we age, our bodies change. Many seniors experience declining vision, reduced motor skills, and hearing loss. Your app needs to accommodate these changes. Think larger fonts, high-contrast color schemes, and intuitive navigation that doesn’t require precise tapping. Audio feedback can be a game-changer for those with visual impairments, while closed captions are essential for users with hearing difficulties.
Cognitive Considerations
It’s not just physical changes you need to keep in mind. Cognitive decline can affect how seniors interact with technology. Keep your app’s layout simple and consistent. Avoid cluttered screens that might overwhelm users. Clear, step-by-step instructions can make all the difference in user adoption and retention.
Tech Savviness Spectrum
Don’t fall into the trap of assuming all seniors are tech-averse. While some may be new to smartphones, others are silver surfers who’ve embraced technology. Your app should cater to both ends of this spectrum.
Privacy and Security Concerns
Seniors often have heightened concerns about privacy and security, especially when it comes to health data. Be transparent about how you collect and use their information. Implementing strong security measures and communicating them clearly will help build trust.
By truly understanding the needs of senior users, you’ll be well on your way to developing a wellness app that not only meets their requirements but exceeds their expectations. Remember, it’s about creating an experience that’s not just accessible, but genuinely empowering for older adults.
Tips for Developing Accessible Apps for Older Adults
While the older generation is becoming more proficient with technology, physical limitations are still a challenge. Enhanced app accessibility for seniors is what ultimately differentiates wellness apps for seniors from other audiences.
There are a lot of accessibility features in senior wellness apps to consider. Here, we’ve compiled tips on how to make accessible wellness apps for elderly from our development experience.
Create Simple Visuals
With old age comes wisdom but also poor eyesight. Some UI decisions, such as small text or soft color transitions, may be difficult for seniors to see. For this reason, our developers recommend using larger font sizes and more contrasting colors to create user-friendly senior apps.
A good call would be to create a minimalistic design with distinguished elements that are easy to read. Additionally, consider adding subtitles if your app has video or audio content for better accessibility. The combination of such features will result in an inclusive app design for seniors.
Avoid Timed Actions
One of the most popular ways to emphasize the necessity of an action is to add a timer to it. This design choice tends to play on the user’s FOMO and can work great with many users. In the case of the older generation, however, you should avoid it for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, there is a possibility that older adults will need more time to comprehend what action is needed, which can lead to confusion. Secondly, time-limited tasks or fast interactions can lead to stress, which will take a toll on user experience.
Make Information Accessible
One of the biggest obstacles for older adults in learning new elderly wellness applications is a lack of understanding of how to perform specific actions. To deal with it, the older generation often relies on their family to teach them. While common, it can spur frustration in older people when they can’t find the resources to figure things out for themselves.
By creating accessible help sections, tooltips and tutorials, you can make your users self-sufficient. Not only will this improve the overall user experience, but also positively influence the user’s self-esteem when they learn something new by themselves.
Add Visual and Auditory Cues
We rarely see additional feedback features if we look at design choices developers make in current mobile solutions. Usually, if the user presses the button, it will instantly correspond to the action without giving any cues.
From the perspective of younger generations, it’s a good design choice since it makes every interaction feel a bit faster. When dealing with older generations, it can confuse the user. That’s why you need to add visual and auditory feedback for actions to create a better understanding of what action just happened.
Don’t Use Niche Terminology
When explaining features or elements of your solution, some terms or technical slang might be hard for older people to understand. This will complicate the learning process, and you may have to spend additional time explaining what those terms mean.
We recommend avoiding using such words in favor of simplified explanations that do not use niche terminology or slang. This will make the learning straightforward and give seniors the necessary information to comprehend how your app works.
What about usability tips and a real-market case study? No worries, we have it all in our original article. Just follow this link and enjoy!
