Effective requirements gathering for older adults

Eliciting appropriate requirements from users is an important part of the software design process. However, increasing evidence suggests that for many groups of older people lacking the experience and familiarity with many aspects of new technology, this can be a particularly difficult issue to address. Further, this issue is critical in regards to novel and emerging applications that break away from the 'traditional' desktop/workplace interface domain, and reside more in the domestic/entertainment/leisure domain. Thus the challenge is to address user-requirements before they are implemented, and in doing so create more meaningful dialogue with potential older users about applications and devices that do not actually exist yet.