“Maps are hard for me”: Identifying How Older Adults Struggle with Mobile Maps

Abstract

Despite a global upward trend in mobile device ownership, older adults continue to use few applications and fewer features. For example, besides directions, maps provide information about public transit, traffic, and amenities. Mobile maps can assist older adults to navigate independently, avail city facilities, and explore new places. But how accessible are current mobile maps to older adults? In this paper, we present results from a qualitative study examining how older adults use mobile maps and the difficulties they encounter. 172 problems were identified and categorized across 17 older adults (ages 60+). Results indicate that non-motor issues were more difficult to mitigate than motor issues and led to maximum frustration and resignation. These non-motor issues stemmed from three factors, inadequate visual saliency, ambiguous affordances, and low information scent, making it difficult for older adults to notice, use, and infer, respectively. Two design solutions are proposed to address these non-motor issues.