It is something of an irony that those who could probably benefit most from mobile health – older people, who tend to suffer more health problems – are arguably the least prepared to use it.
We should not patronise older consumers. An increasing number of senior citizens are using new technologies every day, from iPads to Skype, giving lie to the idea that they are anti-tech fuddy duddies.
And yet evidence exists that, for all their willingness to embrace new technology, older people are generally less tech savvy than the youth.
A 2014 Pew Research Center report on Older Adults and Technology Use, for example, acknowledges that US senior citizens have historically been late adopters of technology compared to their younger compatriots.
What’s more, the report finds that within the wider group of US senior citizens there is a distinct split in terms of tech adoption, with one subgroup (which leans toward younger, more highly educated or more affluent seniors) already highly connected to the tech world, while the other, older, less affluent group is “largely disconnected from the world of digital tools and services, both physically and psychologically”.
In terms of mHealth, the key sentence of the 2014 Pew report may well be that this latter group typically faces “significant challenges with health or disability”. So those senior citizens in the US who face the biggest problems with their health are also those who are least engaged with new technology.
This makes the findings of a new report from AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), released this week, particularly relevant.
The report, grandly titled Building a Better Tracker: Older Consumers Weigh in on Activity and Sleep Monitoring Devices, is one of the first attempts to investigate the attitudes of older people to mobile health (and in particular fitness trackers).
The finding were, on the whole, pretty positive. 92 older consumers were given one of seven tracker devices to use for six weeks, with 77% reporting back that activity and sleep trackers are – or have the potential to be – useful to them.
Some 45% of respondents reported increased motivation for healthier living and 46% reported actually being more active, sleeping better or eating more healthfully. Most importantly, perhaps, 42% of participants said they would continue to use a tracker device in the future.
This, on the face of it, is good news for the mobile health industry. And yet the report also contained some fairly stark words of advice for device manufacturers in terms of usability.
“Contrary to what you see on TV, wristbands that harness big data to measure steps, calories, heartbeats and more aren’t only for the 20-something triathlete or yoga instructor. Consumers 50-plus care about achieving positive health and avoiding illness and see potential in using activity and sleep trackers toward these goals,” the report says.
“Yet tapping this market’s full potential requires that usability challenges – such as discomfort and perceived inaccuracy of data syncing – be overcome first.”
Going further, the report explains that many of the 92 senior citizens who were involved in the study stopped using their device before the six seeks was up, with the top four sources of frustration being: perceived inaccuracies in the data reported by the devices; challenges in finding and using the instructions; perceived device malfunctions, especially related to syncing; and difficulty putting on and wearing the device, as well as discomfort.
“Frustrations abounded,” the reports continues. “For 89% [of participants], difficulties started during the set-up process; in fact, 81% of participants age 70-plus were not able to set up their trackers without assistance.”
These findings should be ringing Big Ben-sized alarm bells in the heads of every manufacturer of tracker devices (and, in fact, of wearable devices as a whole).
The senior citizen market is growing rapidly, as populations age across the Western World. And, with the relatively generous pensions of 40 years ago and surging house prices, senior citizens have money to spend, in many cases a lot more than the younger consumers so beloved of tech brands.
But they are being let down in the wearable world by something as basic as “finding and using the instructions”. That’s pretty frustrating.
And yet you can see how this happens. Younger consumers rarely read the instructions; instead they get to know technology by playing around with it.
That is natural behaviour for those of us who have grown up with digital technology: we know that pressing a few buttons isn’t going to kill our shiny new device because that’s what we’ve always done. And so instructions are often seen as an afterthought, unloved and unwanted.
For senior citizens – again, without being patronising – the same is typically not true. They haven’t grown up with digital technology in the same way as younger consumers. They’re not used to experimenting. And the tech industry needs to remember this.
So what, then, can device manufacturers do to address these shortcomings? Luckily, the report addresses this at length.
Usability, as mentioned above, is key. More specifically, it is important that interactions generally align with expectations, so that if a device looks like a watch, say, then it performs like one.
Comfort, too, is part of this equation, with one of the report’s simplest recommendations being that devices “feature a more comfortable band”.
Devices should be waterproof, the report continues; they should include a display; they should have a “nicer-looking” design; and they should display time like a watch.
They should also be more understandable, “accompanied by better, more detailed instructions” and with material to explain how tracking works “so users could feel confident in the accuracy of the data”.
The “ideal tracker” for the 50+ market, the report concludes, should be informative, with materials that explain how the device works; simple, with a straightforward set-up process; accessible, with product instructions that are easy to follow; invisible / unobtrusive; instantaneous (i.e. giving users a view of progress that is up to date); targeted to 50+ consumers; and “meaningfully engaging, with timely notifications of progress, such as when a user is near or at a milestone”.
None of this is rocket science. But it may require device manufacturers to open their perspectives a little and wrench their view from the demands of the aggressively youth-focused tech world.
Will they do so? Most probably. Because, let’s be clear, tailoring their products to senior citizens is not a work of charity; it is an economic necessity.
William H. Frey, an analyst for Brookings Institution, predicts the average age in Europe will increase from 37.7 years old in 2003 to 52.3 years old by 2050. Ignoring this market is tantamount to cutting your consumer base in half. And no one wants to do that.
From a British perspective on this subject, meanwhile, look out for the findings from Innovate UK, which is running a challenge around the use of digital technology to improve wellbeing in later life through the IC tomorrow Quantified Self Innovation Contest. The contest is open to digital companies from UK and the EU.