Affiliations: [a] Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida, PO Box 100164 Gainesville, FL 32610-0164, USA | [b] Rehabilitation Outcomes Research Center, Gainesville, VAMC, FL, USA. Tel.: +1 352 273 6817; Fax: +1 352 273 6042; E-mail: [email protected]. | [c] Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department (CISE), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA | [d] Rehabilitation Science Doctoral Program, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA | [e] Department of Occupational Therapy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA | [f] Rehabilitation Research Center on Aging with Disabilities, University of California Irvine, Program in Geriatrics, Irvine, CA, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author.
Abstract: Through the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for Successful Aging (RERC-Tech-Aging) elder perspectives on cell phone designs and features were explored. Six-hundred and sixty-five participants (596 elders with disabilities, 69 adults with disabilities) from Northern Florida, Southern California, and Western New York were surveyed through face-to-face interviews, phone interviews, or mailed surveys. The survey addressed satisfaction, importance, frequency of use, methods for learning, barriers to use, views on features, and ways the cell phone had helped. The majority of elders (60%) valued their cell phone, and a large proportion (87%) use the cell phone for emergencies. Only one third of elders reported using their cell phone daily. Suggestions for improving phone design included increasing button size (50% of subjects), increasing display size (29% of subjects), increasing overall size of the cell phone (24% subjects), and decreasing the complexity of the phone.
