Let's Ride

For my final project at Ironhack, I designed a mobile app to improve the quality of life of older immigrants and help them feel more connected and active.

my role

Idea, Research, User Interviews, UI Design, Illustration, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Team

Murilo Mafra - Mentor

Background

Older people are a demographic often overlooked by digital products designed for younger audiences. Immigrants face additional challenges.

Approximately 60,000 Soviet immigrants arrived in Israel annually during the 1990s, and a significant portion of them are now aged 60 and above. Motivated by observations within my own family and the broader older immigrant community, I interacted with both familiar and unfamiliar individuals to comprehend their unique problems and needs and devise a practical solution.

Research Methods

My research included reviewing articles and statistics, interviews and a survey.

Secondary research: articles on older people and their use of technology, and statistical data on older immigrants in Israel.
User interviews: In addition to talking to the target group, it was particularly interesting to hear the opinions of family members and people around them, as they could give a different perspective. For example, when asked directly about their social circle, my potential users tried to appear strong and content, but people around them could see the problem more easily.
Survey: completed by the target group and their environment.

Insights

After conducting research I created an affinity diagram, observing challenges and opportunities in the following areas:

Social Circle

Immigrants have smaller families, elderly people see their children once in a few weeks, and many of them are divorced and live alone. Additional isolation comes from leaving their previous lives in the country of origin and the language barrier. They lack social contact but are not eager to meet new people since they value long-term, meaningful connections- as opposed to superficial or online ones.

Managing Daily Life

Troubles with managing online, such as banking, paying bills, or scheduling appointments with doctors
Financial difficulties and lower economical status
Language barrier and trouble finding reliable and affordable services
They don’t know their legal rights and are also afraid to be taken advantage of

Culture and Hobbies

They are intellectuals, enjoying a rich cultural life, literature, arts and movies, as well as concerts and exhibitions. They actively search for online lectures and courses. Due to Covid-19, there has been a significant decline in their social and cultural life.

Technology

The elderly population uses technology in a slightly different way, due to physical changes but also due to being less used to it. A digital product has to be practical and useful for them, otherwise, they will not engage with it. My target users mostly use social media for keeping in touch with family and friends, as well as the Russian nostalgic app called “Odnoklassniki”, which allows finding former classmates that are now spread around the world.However they often face difficulties and when they do, they usually ask for help from family members.

Accessibility

I wanted to understand what is it that makes it more difficult for the elderly to use technology. It seems that it has to do with physical changes, such as reduction of vision and hearing, cognitive decline leading to short memory problems and motoric issues. On the other side, they have a better attention span than younger audiences and it’s easier for them to concentrate on long text. They will pay special attention and read the instructions before using a product.

All these lead to special needs when it comes to UX/UI design. Some of them are compliant with the A11Y standard, which addresses general accessibility, and some are additional ones, I have attempted to consider all these points while designing my product.

Persona

Defining the Problem

Our users want to lead enjoyable and socially active lives, but financial constraints, a reluctance to accept the need for a wider social circle and a reluctance to use technology present challenges.

How might we help them plan their social activities without causing financial damage while helping enrich their social circle in an unobtrusive, indirect way?

Ideation

From several ideas, I decided to create a free car-sharing app in our users' native language.

The above insights, as well as the unique situation in Israel, led me to choose this particular solution:

The public transport in Israel is inactive during the weekend, leaving the people dependent on private transportation
The Russian-speaking community is quite conservative and many women don’t drive. Since many are divorced and live alone, they have no affordable transportation solution for the weekend
The benefit would be an affordable solution, volunteer-based, practical and useful, that would also maybe, in its indirect way, get people together in a community

Wireframes

Next, I created user flows and wireframes for each: users who offer a ride and users who search for a ride.

Final Screens and Prototypes

Second Version

After the high-fidelity prototype, I reconsidered the layout, aiming for a minimalist, compact design with horizontal scrolling. However, further usability testing was needed to assess its effectiveness.

Takeaways

In summary, I have learned about the crucial role of accessibility in UX/UI decisions and the complexity of extracting information through interviews, acknowledging the inherent uncertainty.

So my next steps would be more usability testing, looking at the result and its usability, the clarity of the product and whether it's useful and really helpful to my target audience.