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Mobile AgeCI: Potential Challenges in the Development and Evaluation of Mobile Applications for Elderly People

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Computer Aided Systems Theory – EUROCAST 2015 (EUROCAST 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9520))

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Abstract

Designing mobile applications for elderly users can be very challenging. Their heterogeneous prior knowledge and abilities make user-centered design processes difficult. For that reasons, some measures are necessary to make the applications usable the majority of elderly people and to get useful feedback during the evaluation. In this paper, we summarize central challenges we faced during the user-centered development of a mobile fitness application for seniors. We address differences in interaction, trust issues, fears, functional complexity, and aspects of motivation. Based on these experiences, we present suggestions that can be useful for the future development and evaluation of mobile (fitness) applications for elderly people.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-apps.

  2. 2.

    http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/itunes-app-store-reaches-1-3-million-mobile-applications/.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, project PASSAge, funding number 16SV5748). Further information on the project can be found on https://www.passage-projekt.de.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Media Technology, Distributed Multimodal Information Processing Group, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Stefan Diewald

  2. Department for Prevention, Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Barbara Geilhof, Monika Siegrist & Martin Halle

  3. Lehrstuhl für Informatik mit Schwerpunkt Eingebettete Systeme, Universität Passau, Passau, Germany

    Patrick Lindemann, Marion Koelle & Matthias Kranz

Authors
  1. Stefan Diewald
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  2. Barbara Geilhof
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  3. Monika Siegrist
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  4. Patrick Lindemann
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  5. Marion Koelle
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  6. Martin Halle
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  7. Matthias Kranz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan Diewald .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. de Gran Canaria, Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canari, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Roberto Moreno-Díaz

  2. Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria

    Franz Pichler

  3. de Gran Canaria, Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canari, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Alexis Quesada-Arencibia

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Diewald, S. et al. (2015). Mobile AgeCI: Potential Challenges in the Development and Evaluation of Mobile Applications for Elderly People. In: Moreno-Díaz, R., Pichler, F., Quesada-Arencibia, A. (eds) Computer Aided Systems Theory – EUROCAST 2015. EUROCAST 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9520. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27340-2_89

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27340-2_89

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27339-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27340-2

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