CaneCo

Objective

This is an App that is targeted towards Senior Citizens. The idea was to create an app to sell canes in the Internet. The user picks the perfect cane and CaneCo delivers them in Mexico. The app had to be simple enough to be used by this target audience. There is a way to calculate the optimum height for you to find the perfect cane.

So I conducted the User case, since I know for a fact, senior citizens are not all too comfortable with buying in the internet.

Process

I started researching. I went on to Google Scholar and researched for some habits of senior Citizens, about buying and about behavior. First of all, it is more likely for them to use a tablet. The other important concept is that, if buying in the internet is challenging for them, shopping for canes or for medical appliances becomes a nightmare because they feel old. The upper side of this: Nobody has to see you buying a cane right?

Moodboard

Armed with this research I went with GOTHAM, it is one of the most utilized fonts for a reason, it is firm without being intimidating. Also I went for a color palette that conveys the idea of a health care professional, this because I decided we needed to carry all the formality, professionalism and respect these workers have.

Low Fidelity Wireframe

I started to do a Low Fidelity Wire frame using paper and Sharpie. I made the whole thing but I pick this image since it is (for me) the best example of how my process works. I imagined to use the whole movement possibilities that a touch pad has, so if you see the paper on the left you can appreciate a man and a sign that rads Height. Well there is a scroll button that you can drag to adjust the height of your cane in comparison with your height. Also the bar below gives you more information about this.

Testing

Before even thinking about UI I went and made all the senior citizens I know, try this paper prototype. The idea of the Height selector was not well received. As it is, senior citizens are not fond of dragging, swiping or shaking their tablets or phones. They prefer clicks. Also large numbers, "as fewer options as you can and make the font nice and big".

The Screens

With these tests I had a prototype that I could test, with fonts as big as possible and using animation but keeping it as discrete as possible.

The size of the objects makes the ipad look smaller! and I had a testing group of 5 people. We started interviewing and all this was the model that became more successful. Probably not very modern but it did get the job done. The big buttons reminded the users to the interfaces they can find in some of the pharmacies and made this app very easy to use.

CaneCo.mp4

The conclusion is that, as a designers we want to create great UI, we want to use all the colors of the palette and we want to try and test more functions, to challenge the medium and to make the programmers hate us! (not on purpose.) But projects like this one, teach us a valuable lesson, is the user first and the user last. We are creating products. We don't want to end up creating a Norman App.