Use of cell phones by elders with impairments: Overall appraisal, satisfaction, and suggestions

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% of subjects), and decreasing the complexity of the phone.