Designing for Older Adults: Overcoming Barriers to a Supportive, Safe, and Healthy Retirement

Abstract

Older adults (65+) are at increasing risk of being ‘digitally marginalized’ due to lower tech savviness, social isolation, and few peers who can provide the needed input. As a consequence, some seniors have difficulties and are exposed to security risks when accessing essential services which are increasingly moving online. These include making critical life decisions, understanding health information, accessing health services, staying connected to families, or simply doing online shopping. This chapter investigates how online technologies can be designed to be inclusive of older adults’ needs, abilities, and contexts. Several barriers barring technology adoption include mental models; attitudes related to critical decision making; privacy concerns; and overall cyber-safety concerns preventing seniors from engaging with such resources online. We also propose ways to help the FinTech sector incorporate new approaches so that services and applications better serve the needs and constraints of older adults.

A Novel Approach to Improving the Digital Literacy of Older Adults

“…The Senior Technology Acceptance and Adoption Model (STAM) lists the perceived usefulness and the usability of digital technology (software, hardware, Internet and Internet-based services) as factors impacting technology adoption [16]. For OA to be motivated, the utility of a technology must outweigh the effort of learning to use it [17]. For OA who are already motivated to use technology, ease of the learning process will determine the actual use [18].…”

How FinTech is Reshaping the Retirement Planning Process

“…Research by Munteanu et al (2019) shows that older persons often avoid online activity due to lack of digital confidence and concerns about fraud, leading to digital marginalization. Yet many seniors will need to avail themselves of potentially very helpful and lower-cost robo financial services in the future, giving rise to the question of how to encourage their comfort with such services.…”

“…A fifth observation about the FinTech marketplace is that the industry must consider human behavior when designing products. As Munteanu et al (2019) point out in their chapter, technological design should be driven by users' needs. Accordingly, startups should consider how the older population interacts with technology and the unique concerns they have, versus Millennials.…”