*3.1.2 Digital content extraction*

We extracted data in two ways, firstly from online forums in which OAs were engaging with developers and the wider community on issues they were experiencing with their apps (see (A) below), and secondly by testing a sub-set of apps developed especially for OAs (see (B) below).

	- **1. The Seniorsonly**<sup>7</sup> **Club -** run by seniors for seniors. There are eight different sections of this forum on which seniors can post questions, Forum Administration and Notices, Education and Entertainment, Getting it Done, Hot Button Issues, I remember when, On the lighter side, Ourselves and Others, Off topic. In addition, the technology section on this forum was active and recent conversations were observed. Author 1 delved deeply into a subsection of 'Education and Entertainment' called 'Gadgets and Tech talk'. The objective of this section was to discuss seniors' issues related to electronic or mechanical gadgets, equipment, computers or computer software, phones or smart phone applications, electronic reading devices, or anything relating to gadgets and technology. Fifteen threads with a total of 238 posts were included during data collection of this study.
	- **2. SeniorForums**<sup>8</sup> **-** Author 1 also looked into the 'Computers and Phones' section of SeniorForums, another forum for people over 50. Recent conversations in the technology section on this forum were observed. A total of 15 threads related to technology, particularly mobile phones, consisting of 170 posts, were included in this study.

OAs on these forums appear to be well-versed with technology. They would love to use more of the latest technology if it is inexpensive and privacy is ensured. This is in line with our previous research [59]. One of the older adults mentioned on the forum that he would prefer wearables rather than smartphones. Here is an excerpt from his comment:

*"When they make them so that the Apple Watch is my cellphone, then I might consider it because carrying my iPhone is never convenient for me. I don't like carrying a phone in my shirt pocket, although having had cancer twice now, I don't suppose that's something I should worry much about, and there's no other convenient place to put it. I keep leaving it on the table at restaurants and have to go back for it. I would wear a watch if I could use it as a phone."*

<sup>7</sup> http://www.seniorsonly.club/

<sup>8</sup> https://www.seniorforums.com/

*Usability Recommendations for Designers of Smartphone Applications for Older Adults… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96775*

OAs constantly discuss how to ensure privacy whilst using technology on these forums. Here is a solution proposed by a member on the question of ensuring privacy when using websites:

*"Being stuck with a fixed, constant ISP number hinders one's privacy quite a bit. A roaming ISP number helps. Using a Proxy service server is useless, as I've found out. If you really want to operate some of your P.C. activities, do it at a public computer place, library, or the like, while setting your PCs security settings at maximum, reject all cookies. Set Temporary Internet Files to store for 0 days, and delete automatically each time you log off. Check them now and then for cookies, anyway. Always use In Private (Internet Explorer) or Incognito (Chrome) to boot."*

### **B. Mainstream Apps for Older Adults.**

A total of 32 mainstream apps were evaluated to find recommendations that are making these apps successful and/or unsuccessful. We started by identifying keywords, joining them together to define search strings. An example search string applied to app stores is 'apps for older adults'. Author 1 then searched Android and Apple app stores using the defined search strings. An initial search produced 177 and 18 results for the former and latter (these searches were conducted between May to August of 2019). A scrutiny was performed on these retrieved apps using an agreed inclusion and exclusion criteria [36]. This exercise reduced the number of apps, and we were left with a set of 101 android and 6 iOS apps. As the evaluation of 107 apps would have required a herculean effort, and more time than we had available, we selected a sample of apps from this set. In order to reduce the sampling error and achieve precision, we opted for a stratified sampling method. Hence, these 107 selected apps were carefully reviewed, arranged and classified into 9 different categories. These were Health & Safety, Launcher, Dating, Gaming, Shopping, Entertainment, Communication & Socialisation, Education and Tools. After stratification of the apps, a simple random sampling technique was applied on each of the nine sub groups. An equivalent percentage of 30% was selected from each type of app. This step resulted in a total of 32 finally selected apps, 30 android and 2 iOS based.

#### *3.1.3 Qualitative analysis results*

We analysed the qualitative data generated from Think Aloud Protocol and Digital Content Extraction using the strategy explained in Section 2. Likes, dislikes and recommendations for the development of smartphone applications for tech-savvy older adults were extracted.

#### 1. Likes.

**Source of Information** Older adults really like a feature that serves as a source of information.

*"This is a comprehensive app, which gives much information that the elderly need to know, from taking care of their health to advice on how to handle their finances to how to secure their property."*

*"Every information is available including elder abuse and rights of the elderly." "It is a user-friendly app to get any sort of information on elders."*

**Video Tutorials** Older adults liked to learn new information or even exercises through video tutorials available within the apps for them. For example, one of the older adults commented:

*"Tried a lot of apps, finally landed here, it is a simple and useful app. The best part is the video tutorials"*.

**Support Independent Living** In addition, an app that supports independent living was really admired by older adults. One of the comments on the app stores was:

*"My mom was looking for a personal fitness coach. Apparently, this app helped her achieve fitness goals without a trainer."*

**Allow Customisation** Older adults preferred apps that allow customisation according to their needs and wants.

*"After trying several app launchers, I settled for this launcher. Simple to use with enough customizing ability. Very clean too."*

*"Good app and easy to customise. Only if I could add widget and one more screen tab. It will be 5 star app."*

**Easy to Use and Learn** One of the key things older adults look for in an app is how easy it is to use and learn.

*"Recently, gifted a 5.5" android GS370 to my 70 year old mother and this launcher was one of the reasons to do so. Requires little to no explanation, easy to learn and manipulate - especially for the elderly. No superfluous apps installed or subscriptions required. Really appreciate the efforts by the developers."*

*"Great launcher, simple to use. I installed it for my mother. She is bad with technology, but got the hang of it pretty easy. 5 stars is not enough."*

*"Oh my God! so easy to use for seniors. No ads."*

*"Good for my mother, she feels it is easy to use."*

**Big and Attractive Icons** Big icons also make it easier for older adults to operate the application and they mention it as often as they could at any forum where they had the liberty to speak about their expectations from an app for them.

*"I like the big icon."*

*"My mom's phone also having it now. Big icon easy to operate."*

*"Great user interface, user friendly look like a stock launcher. Icon is bigger than others nice launcher."*

If icons are ugly, older adults get demotivated and do not want to use the application or a particular version where the icons are not attractive.

*"Downgraded to 4 stars due to ugly icons in latest update. Why? Actual bugs remain unfixed."*

#### 2. Dislikes.

**Non-functional Features** If a feature in an app did not function the way it was intended, then it reduced the motivation to use the app for older adults and they became sceptical of the entire system.

*"Nobody receives the SOS calls."*

*"SOS is just an illusion created to attract people. No actual help from their side whatsoever."*

**Many Advertisements** Older adults could only be truly satisfied with an app if there were no distractions, e.g., advertisements. One of the users clearly mentioned that he/she would only give a high rating to the app if there were not advertisements.

*"Not downloading and only ads after each minute, fix this and I will give 5 stars".* **Lack of Explanation** Older adults dislike an app which did not clearly explain how to use its features. An example was a fitness app which tells the user what to

*Usability Recommendations for Designers of Smartphone Applications for Older Adults… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96775*

do, but did not explain how to do it neither in descriptive nor in pictorial or video format.

*"Not much to it ....tells you how many reps to do but doesn't show or explain the exercise."*

**Non-durable Features** Older adults do not like a non-durable application which has no reliability as to whether it will work or not. This means that if it works for some time and stops working or freezes or crashes during use, this will lead to uninstallation of the app by older adults.

*"Worked well for 6 days then packed in and refused to start even after uninstalling and reinstall."*

*"Crashes immediately when swiping up to open app list. I tested 2 different Huwaei Phones. Honor 7X and Honor 8. Both crashed."*

*"Since last update, today, has crashed at least 17 times in 30 minutes. Fix it"*. *"Had potential. Updates broke it."*

*"Excellent app, easy and nice large lettering, the developer of this app did a great job, it certainly deserves 5 STARS, have re-downloaded and working again fine, but still freezing after phone shut off or changing to another launcher temporarily."*

*"Crashes constantly."*

**Access to Sensitive Information** OAs are very sceptical and want to understand the reason why an app would be constantly asking for access to files and location. They are very concerned about privacy and confidentiality. This is one of the consistent findings of our research, which is contrary to the widespread perception that OAs do not care about privacy and are easily scammed.

*"Mandatory weather widget that demands location data. Weather widget won't allow users to enter their city manually, these developers want the user's exact location."*

*"The app requires a lot of permissions and refuses to even start without them. For example, must have access to your location."*

*"Access your files and know your location, Why?"*

**Compatibility Issues** OAs want the app to work on any type of device they own e.g., android, iOS or windows based. They also want the app to work perfectly on different sizes of device, whether large or small.

*"Not working on my Moto G6. From the home screen, every time I swipe up to open the application drawer Simple Launcher crashes. I want to use this app, but can't. The app does work on my OnePlus 6 without any problems, but crashes on my Moto G6."*

*"Please add support for long screens. In Redmi 5 I can see black bar on top."*

**Confusing** If it is confusing for OAs to find or use the application, they become reluctant to adopt it. Here is one excerpt from a set of OA comments on an app designed for them.

*"How to use it man..I am not even finding...where it had gone after my download.. Please find it for me."*

3. Recommendations.

**Constant Improvement** To maximise usage, the apps must keep on evolving and improving with the passage of time, even if the users, older adults, are happy with the current version.

*"Installed this app on my fathers phone. The exercises are good and basic. Looking forward to a better experience."*

**Pick and Move** In case of an app that falls under the category of a launcher, OAs want to move the apps freely on the interface, rather than deleting and relying on auto-arrange. This recommendation is about those launchers, which currently do not allow drag and drop to move apps.

*"Can you make it so the apps can be arranged by moving them around. The only way I can figure out how to do it is to delete them and carefully plan which apps, I would like in order. Not sure how many stars to rate the app as yet."*

**One Tap Calling** The app should allow quick calling to the contacts through a single tap, instead of conventional navigation which requires multiple steps.

*"Just enough! Great for seniors! But, I would love it more if it gave the option for onetouch calling. Currently, contact icons bring you to the contact page. Please enable a direct dial option, as this would make the app perfect!"*

*"Please try to dial contacts directly with one touch."*

**Multiple Themes** The app should have a feature that allows you to choose a theme, colour combination, of users own choice.

*"It would be nice to apply different icon packs for a really cool look."*

*"Nice simple launcher but would like to see more features like themes and icon pack support also ability to add widgets."*

**Allow Remove Feature** The app should allow removal of any features which older adults do not want to use any more. This will also make the interface cleaner and simpler.

*"Ability to remove SOS for those who do not need it and make the page a full screen for contact shortcuts."*

**Notification Badge on App Icon** Older adults like to have notifications badge on the icon of the application to reduce annoyance.

*"Really great app, but I'd like to have the option to display the date in UK format (dd/mm) and to change the font size and colour. It also doesn't show notifications on each app's icon - is this something the launcher could do?"*

*"Add a badge notification option for apps. I never know how many texts I have until I open the app which is annoying."*

**Incorporate Hold Down Gesture** In some launchers, hold down gesture does not work, which older adults would love to use.

*"Good clean nice looking launcher with a few missing things. 1: Holding down on an icon for a while does not open it. 2: On the contacts screen there is no option to SMS or send a message to the person. While I feel that it is good for many people to hide this option, for others it is essential."*

**Disable Hamburger or Drawer Icon** Older adults can accidentally tap the drawer/ hamburger which opens the detailed menu making it confusing for them and difficult to return. It is therefore recommended to disable it in the apps for older adults.

*"Please add an entry in the options menu to disable the app drawer so that an oldie does not swipe up and show the drawer by accident. This way the usable apps are limited to what is shown on the main launcher screen. Great app and great support. Thank you*!! *"".*

**Improve Colour Combination** The apps for older adults must cater for users with visual problems or those who are colour blind. This means a high contrast should be used, which is a recurring theme that emerged throughout the previous studies as well as the evaluation of apps.

*"Why did you ruin a great app. The notification panel has become transparent which looks odd over the dark launcher screen...rollback the update or fix it ASAP please."*

**Allow Multiple Metrics** The features in the app must consider different locations and cultures and incorporate multiple metrics for easier understanding, particularly for older adults.

*"Locked in metric. Can't change to Fahrenheit."*

*"So far really nice... Big icons and super easy interface..only complaint is that not sure how to set temp to Fahrenheit for us non metric luddites."*

*Usability Recommendations for Designers of Smartphone Applications for Older Adults… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96775*

*"Perfect except needs Fahrenheit not just Celsius."*

**Make Swiping Fast** Older adults get concerned if the apps execution is slow, in particular with regard to swiping. They admire applications which have fast swiping.

*"Great app, but please make the swipe up fast."*
