Alexander, I just wanted to clarify -- I simply meant "mobile tools that cater to the elderly", not specifically cell phones, when I wrote my comment. (I certainly agree with you that a cell phone alone is not the right tool for an advanced Alzheimer's patient.)
I'm trying to make the point that there's a full spectrum here, from perfectly capable older adult, to someone with mild cognitive issues, to someone with significant cognitive issues (e.g. Alzheimer's). I think different tools will be useful to different people along the spectrum. And of course there are other spectrums too -- vision, mobility, previous experience with devices, etc. Different devices will continue to develop for different niches. The problem is not going to go away in 3-5 years. For people who are interested in more info, Ron Baecker at the University of Toronto is doing a lot of work on memory aids for seniors at the moment. (I'm sure there are others too, but I worked with Ron so his name comes to mind first.) His publications on the subject can be found at the first green bullet on this page: http://www.kmdi.toronto.edu/rmb/; a good starter article is here ("An Empirical Study of Seniors' Perceptions of Mobile Phones as Memory Aids"): http://www.kmdi.toronto.edu/rmb/papers/B16.pdf. Meredith ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Meredith Noble Information Architect, Usability Matters Inc. 416-598-7770, ext. 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -----Original Message----- > From: Alexander Baxevanis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 5:01 PM > To: Meredith Noble > Cc: ELISABETH HUBERT; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] comments to the "Doro's ridiculously > simplephones in the wild" > > If only all human beings made purely rational decisions... > Working in the mobile industry, I have seen a lot of studies focusing > on that population segment. Something that comes up in every study is > that many people find the idea of "dumb-looking phone with large > buttons" very patronising and wouldn't want to be seen dead with them. > They want to have the same phones as their children & grandchildren as > a matter of pride. > > Reading the article below it seems to me that Alzheimer patients may > have more serious problems than operating a mobile phone, problems > that make them need frequent assistance of a carer. Maybe we could > come up with a different paradigm for a communication device tailored > for such people, but I doubt it's worth trying to twist the mobile > phone paradigm to accommodate such needs. ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
