José Laparra Hernández, Carolina Soriano García, María Sancho Mollá, Enrique Medina Ripoll, Julio A. Vivas Vivas, Rakel Poveda Puente, Raquel Marzo Roselló, Amparo López Vicente, María Ángeles Candel Delgado, Daniel Gómez López, Laura Martínez Gómez, Juan Manuel Belda Lois*

Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV)
Universitat Politècnica de València
Camino de Vera s/n. Edificio 9C
46022 Valencia, Spain

*  The Health Technology Group of the IBV, CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER- BBN)

Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV) has taken part in the European project Bank4Elder, the objective of which is to design banking interfaces that are easy for senior citizens to use. IBV knowledge on usability and its People-Orientated Innovation approach have been essential for the success of the interfaces developed for televisions, computers, cell phones and automated teller machines (ATM) among senior citizens.

 

INTRODUCTION

The demographic structure in European countries has changed in the last decade. Population aging in our society is reality, senior citizens represent 17% of the European population and it is very likely that this will reach 30% by 2060.

Aging can limit the capacities of people in terms of their physical capabilities (among other things, the range of movement and muscle strength is reduced), cognitive capabilities (especially the loss of memory) and sensorial capabilities (such as the loss of vision). Moreover, these limitations might be exacerbated by pathological processes (for example Alzheimer’s disease).

Notwithstanding this however, the fact that the older population is a very heterogeneous group should be taken into account, seeing as it includes individuals with absolutely no functional limitations whatsoever to severely disabled people. Therefore, it is important to have the products, services and environments that suit the capabilities of this population group to make sure that the majority of senior citizens can interact easily and satisfactorily with them.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) gives them to access to numerous services regardless of the time and the place. However, the functional capabilities and the technological skills and/or level of education are essential to be able to interact with new technology properly. Accordingly, this type of technology and therefore the interfaces, have to be adapted to the capabilities and the skills of the population group for whom the products or services are intended.

With regard to the banking interfaces, although increasingly more seniors are gaining access to Internet, only 5% use online banking. The insecurity associated with accessing online banking services, through cell phones, the TV and ATMs, or the problems they have trying to interact with them means that in the majority of cases they prefer to get help from the bank’s staff.

In order to solve this problem, the Bank4Elder project has focused on developing innovative and user-friendly interfaces for the television, cell phones, websites and ATMs that have been adapted to the needs and capabilities of senior citizens to make sure that this population group gets easy and satisfactory access to the banking services.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The methodology that has contributed greatly to the development of the whole project has been based on the People-Orientated Innovation concept. Figure 1 shows how senior citizens have been greatly involved in all the stages of the project, from identifying their needs to validating the different designs and then using their contributions to come up with new concepts. More than 200 users in Spain and Portugal have taken part in developing the project

Figure 1.People-orientated innovation model used to develop banking interfaces for senior citizens.

The senior citizens were seen to be quite willing to use the new ICT solutions to access the banking services right from the first stage of the project. However, the insecurity perceived and the problems that they came up against while they were using them meant that they ended up seeking the help of the bank personnel to do their banking. The function, security, accessibility, usability and emotional requirements were established according to the needs of the senior citizens.

Figure 2. Example of a user profile obtained using the PERSONS methodology.

Having compiled all the information obtained from the users and having established the requirements based on the IBV’s own knowledge of accessibility, ergonomics and usability, the first challenges arose, namely, to summarize the data and raise the designers’ and developers’ awareness of the needs and real capacities of senior citizens. To meet both challenges, in the second stage of the project, the user profiles created with the PERSONS technique (Figure 2) were used combined with an innovation and co-creation workshop (Figure 3) that involved senior citizens, experts and developers.

Figure 3. Different stages of the innovation and creation workshop until the first idea was obtained for the web interface concept.

The result was the basis of the conceptual designs that were subsequently created (Figure 4) and they were assessed by the senior citizens.

Figure 4. Conceptual design of the web interface.

An initial validation was carried out that started off an iterative cycle of design-development-validation-implementation of improvements. In stage 3, usability tests were carried out that combined the most traditional techniques such as error analysis and questionnaires with innovaties approaches based on the analysis of the physiological response and the eye tracking (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Usability tests combining subjective methodologies with innovative objective methodologies based on eye tracking, the analysis of the physiological response and movements.

Finally, a validation was carried out in real-life conditions at the homes of the users for over 3 months. The users carried out their activities freely and without any help, and they had to complete a number of tasks associated with the most popular banking services in each one of the interfaces.

RESULTS

Figure 6 shows the main results, which have been the development of four innovative concepts to access the banking services through the television, the cell phone or the tablet, the computer and the ATM.

Figure 6. Final interface prototypes for the TV, cell phone, web and ATM.

The usability and the success of these interfaces are clear given the results obtained in the different validation stages. The users’ level of satisfaction when using the banking services was really high (Figure 7) and themajority of users were able to use them without any help (Figure 8).

Figure 7.Overall evaluation and satisfaction (Scale from 1, very negative; to 10, very positive) with the 4 interfaces while the pilot projects were being conducted in real conditions.

Figure 8.Success percentage rate concerning the access to banking services without any problems and without help.

It is worth pointing out that even the groups of seniors who had never used a computer or a “Smartphone” were capable of using the banking interfaces after two sessions of interacting with them. However, the most gratifying result is the high number of participants who actually intend to use these interfaces if they are available in their banks, instead of relying on bank staff.

CONCLUSIONS

The success of the project has consisted in getting the senior citizens involved in the project from start to finish, not only as passive individuals, to obtain their opinion, but also as active individuals, contributing to the design and the development of all the banking interfaces. Moreover, the innovation and creation workshops organized have helped raise the designers’ and developers’ awareness of the needs and the real capabilities and needs of these population groups, by encouraging the on-going participation of the end user, the senior citizens, while the prototypes were being produced.

In turn, the subjective and qualitative methodologies have been combined perfectly with innovative objective and quantitative methodologies, such as the eye tracking and the physiological response, according to the requirements of each stage of the project and the information to be acquired. This multidisciplinary user-orientated approach has helped cut down on the development time and costs and produce a group of banking interfaces that really meet the expectations of senior citizens.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Bank4Elder project (AAL-2010-3-039) has been financed by the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) project.