Understanding our users
We conducted semi-structured interviews and desk research to gain insight into older people's behaviours and mindsets around technology, and especially voice assistants. There are a lot of assumptions and even stereotypes when it comes to older people and their familiarity or openness to digital tools. While digital exclusion is of course an important and very real challenge, our research highlighted that older people are not one homogenous group. Much depends on the stituation at hand. Engaging, useful, and accessible digital tools are often welcomed.
Understanding our clients
Working with time-poor clients who were keen to progress at pace, we focused on engaging ways to communicate our research findings. Empathy maps based on evidence provided a useful overview of our insights, and was quick to understand and easy to refer back to. While they did not reflect the full depth of our discovery work, they quickly became the foundation for conversations about user needs, and allowed us to effectively involve our clients in this work.
Barriers and Enablers
Barriers to access continue to be one of my favourite and most flexible design tools. More information on this method can be found on this page: Barriers To Acces. This time, I used it not only to map potential barriers in the new product and service we were evaluating and designing, but also enablers. This meant people or things that made something possible. For example, the local library's tech support offering that gave a research participant confidence with digital tools, taught interface skills, and provided access to a computer. Based on research evidence, we identified several of each in every step of the user journey.
Channel changes as a barrier
As a service designer, I am always keen to understand and solve whole problems for people. I look beyond individual products. And consider how touchpoints and channels integrate, where there are gaps that may get users stuck, and what role staff and other organisations play in delivering a service. For this project, the initial research backed me up and highlighted the importance of this. Older people struggled most when steps in their journey did not connect smoothly, or required them to change channel. For example, from a phone assessment conversation to being emailed the results, or from signing up on a website to receiving a text confirmation to log in.
Service integration as an enabler
On the flipside, a key enabler was digital products integrating with a wider service. This raised trust, and increased their perceived usefulness. A tool that does not attempt to replace human interactions during a service experience, but makes those more meaningful. For example by collecting information in advance of a conversation. This made sense to our user group, and people preferred purposeful engagement with technology. They wanted to be clear how digital tools and interactions will meet their needs before trying them out. This was a major motivator and enabler, even when the product required learning a new skill or navigating an unfamiliar interface.
