Overview
Learn repeatedly what seniors want about digital services
Smartry is an education application for users who have difficulty using digital services. Smartry helps seniors learn and practice the digital services they want to learn, and continue to review what they have learned. As a result, Smartry will improve the ability of the senior generation to use digital services.
Problem
Seniors who do not use smartphones easily
As Korea, which has a high smartphone ownership rate, rapidly enters a super-aged society, the digital information gap has widened. This is a major factor in the increasing digital and social alienation of the elderly, and in fact, the elderly are suffering from social and economic disadvantages.
A situation where seniors cannot repeat what they want to learn
Smartphone education has been proposed as a solution to this problem, but it is difficult for a single teacher to deal with a large number of seniors, and they cannot learn repeatedly because it is generally a one-time class. In addition, such a one-day class is difficult to meet the needs of each senior learner.
Design Challenge
Help seniors learn what they want to do with their smartphone on their own, and keep reviewing the topics.
Solution
Solution 01
Setting your goal
Checks the smartphone features you want to learn and sets the ultimate goal for smartphone learning. Based on this, we recommend smartphone lessons that are appropriate for you.
Solution 02
Class for your goal
You can get recommended classes based on keywords extracted from your desired goals. By taking the recommended classes, you can increase the likelihood of achieving your goal.
Solution 03
Lecture, practice, and test
Classes are organized in the order of lecture, practice, and quizzes. You can understand the concept through lectures, do it by yourself through practice, and check your understanding with quizzes.
Solution 04
Review what you learned
After completing a class, you are encouraged to review at intervals of 1, 3, 5 and 7 days. This way, you can recall and use what you've learned without forgetting.
Solution 05
Check out your achievements
Through the MyPage, you can change your goal or check what and how much you've learned so far.
Design Process
Design Process
Discover / Secondary research
What older adults find difficult about smartphones? 1)
01
Physical and cognitive issues
Information and buttons on smartphones are too small for them to read and use. In addition, interactions such as touch, swipe, pinch, etc. are not familiar to them.
02
Low understanding of smartphone concepts, technologies, terms, etc.
It is more difficult for Korean seniors to understand the concepts and terms because most of them used are written in English.
Discover / Secondary research
How did they learn to use their smartphone so far and what are the limitations? 2)
01 | Take a class
Limitation 1
Impossible repeated learning
Since classes are usually one-day events, it's difficult to engage in repetitive learning.
Limitation 2
Too fast class to follow
The instructor has a fixed amount of content and not enough time to teach in a day. This makes it difficult for seniors to follow the class.
Limitation 3
Only 1 teacher for multiple seniors/Personal interest X
There is usually only one instructor per class. This makes it difficult for a single instructor to consider what each senior wants to learn.
02 | Ask someone
Limitation 1
Hard to ask
It is hard to ask because they are afraid of bothering someone to ask.
Limitation 2
Difficult to learn right away when they need it
Seniors must rely on the availability of those who can help in terms of time and place. Therefore, they cannot learn about smartphones as soon as they want to.
1) Chung Seung Ho, A Study on Improvement of Smartphone Use for Seniors- Improvement plans in perspectives of bodily perception and understanding of terms, concepts and technologies -
2) http://www.100ssd.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=71176
Discover / Primary research
What specific challenges does the senior face in the class?
- User observation
To know the specific difficulty, I observed seniors taking the smartphone class and got some findings.
Subject : 15 Elderly one-person households
Findings
- The instructor tried to tell the elderly too much at once. Therefore, they couldn't keep up with her.
- The elderly did not focus on the instructor unless contents were what they wanted.
- The instructor did not teach the difficult terms for the elderly.
- Teh elderly didn't remember what they learned last class.
- The instructor sent them a summary of the class using messenger after class.
- After class, the elderly did not post a review on the messenger, even if it was recommended.
Discover / Primary research
Competitive Analysis
In order to gain insights into problem solving, I conducted a study of 2 senior digital education apps and 2 English education apps.
Findings
- Educational apps for seniors were not interactive.
- Hands-on apps lacked guidance, making it difficult for seniors to navigate on their own.
- Both of the senior education apps were like a one-day class. They did not encourage ongoing learning.
- The English learning app consisted of practice and review-based educational content.
- The English learning app had many complex elements for seniors who struggle with smartphone use.
- None of the 4 apps provided personalized learning content.
Define
Affinity diagram
I used affinity diagramming to organize and structure the data from my research. Using this method, I was able to divide the findings into 3 distinct key words.
Need for personalization
Seniors wanting to learn about smartphones wished to do so at their preferred time and place. They also wanted the learning tailored to their existing knowledge about their smartphones, focusing on what they specifically want to learn.
Reasons for Giving Up
One reason seniors give up on learning smartphones is the fear of possibly inconveniencing someone. An overarching apprehension about smartphones also played a role. Additionally, forgetting what they had learned sometimes led them to abandon their efforts.
Sense of Achievement
Upon learning about smartphones and doing what they've learned, seniors felt a sense of accomplishment. When continuing their learning journey, they exhibited positive reactions when surrounded by peers in the same situation.
Define
Persona
I used the affinity diagram to uncover 3 keywords, from which I created a user persona and a user journey map. By focusing on the predicted pain points and emotions, I further delineated the challenges our product needed to prioritize.
Define/Develop
Problem statement / Solution Ideation
I organized the content and identified 2 problems and 1 noteworthy point during the define process, came up with 3 solutions and concretized features.
Develop
Information Architecture
While specifying the features, I organized the overall information structure using IA.
Develop
Wireframe
After the planned IA, I drew a low-fidelity wireframe for UI ideation.
Develop
GUI Design
For a positive image, I used orange and blue colors for the final GUI. The size of buttons and text was set to a minimum of 15px to avoid using too small components.
