As part of the discovery phase and to apply design thinking methods to our project, we created a mind map on the concept of Digital Literacy for the elderly. With the aid of this methodology, we were able to think around the core issue of increasing digital literacy for our target group in order to facilitate a recombination process to serve the knowledge and new knowledge stored within our minds (Chen, 2008). The Importance of Digital Literacy, the Challenges faced by the Elderly in Digital Literacy, the Benefits of Digital Literacy for the Elderly, and Strategies to improve Digital Literacy among the Elderly were four main outlines that we covered and discussed.
Figure 2: Mind map process.
Based on the analysis of different topics covered in our mind map and ideation in this regard, we narrowed down our project to 'Design a tutorial-based application to run over other everyday applications anytime the elderly was confused about using the application and lost their way.’
Our problem was the lack of digital literacy among older people, who have difficulties using technology devices. We decided to frame our design challenge to better understand what we need to accomplish. Using brainstorming and mind maps, we explored various ideas and came up with the following 'How Might We' statement:
<aside> ⁉️ How might we empower older individuals (55-70) to navigate their mobile devices with ease and confidence, ensuring they can stay connected, access essential services, and maintain their independence in an increasingly digital world?
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The impact we hope to achieve in this case is to simplify the use of mobile devices for older individuals and improve accessibility. As an immediate ideation for this question, we came up with the following possible solutions:
Using design thinking methodology and conducting iterative ideation while considering the mentioned possible solutions, we came up with the idea of 'A tutorial-based application that can be run over any regular application in order to assist elderly people if they become confused about how to use it and lose their way’.
Figure 3: Winning idea for our problem.
As a result of design thinking, group meetings, and idea evaluation, we were able to refine our ideas until we arrived at an ideal solution (Brown, 2008).
In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of our issue and the target group of users we consider for this project, conducting relevant research is a necessary action to consider in every discovery phase of the design process.
Figure 4: Useful Related Articles (Keywords: Elderly, Digital Literacy, Mobile Phones, Technology, Assist) and their key points.
The functions of smartphones may be unfamiliar to many elderly individuals, and they may view them as exclusive to young people. They must be made aware of the convenience and value of smartphones in their daily lives (Ju and Yu, 2023). A systematic review of measuring digital literacy among older adults has been conducted in several countries, including the United States, Germany, China, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Iran, and Bangladesh. According to this review, the European Commission’s digital competence (DigComp) framework defines digital literacy in five areas (Oh et al., 2021):