Validating mobile phone design guidelines. Focusing on the elderly in a developing country

Designing a usable mobile phone interface is a non-trivial task, especially when it is intended for use by a special needs group. The group we focus on here is composed of the elderly in developing countries. To inform specialised design, researchers produce and refine sets of tailored guidelines. In this case there is surprisingly little empirical evidence attesting to the value or efficacy of such guidelines. Corroborating evidence, in the form of endorsements of designs that have resulted from their implementation, would constitute such evidence. The aim of this paper is to evaluate existing mobile interface design guidelines for the elderly in developing countries by means of implementation. Guided by the design science research methodology, published guidelines were used to design and implement a mobile phone interface tailored to the needs of elderly South Africans. The resulting prototype was evaluated with two groups of South African elderly mobile phone users. Besides validating and refining the guidelines, the challenges experienced in implementing guidelines were noted together with some conclusions about the viability and usefulness of the specific guidelines, as well as mobile interface design guidelines in general. The unique contribution of this paper lies in the reflection on crossing the research-action divide by also considering the challenges of the developers in implementing the guidelines.