OldGen: Mobile Phone Personalization for Older Adults

Mobile devices are currently difficult to customize for the usability needs of elderly users. The elderly are instead referred to specially designed "senior phones" or software add-ons. These tend to compromise in functionality as they attempt to solve many disabilities in a single solution. We present OldGen, a prototype framework where a novel concept enables accessibility features on generic mobile devices, by decoupling the software user interface from the phone's physical form factor. This opens up for better customization of the user interface, its functionality and behavior, and makes it possible to adapt it to the specific needs of each individual. OldGen makes the user interface portable, such that it could be moved between different phone hardware, regardless of model and brand. Preliminary observations and evaluations with elderly users indicate that this concept could address individual user interface related accessibility issues on general-purpose devices.