UXA2023 Emily Underwood and Eilish Out-O'Reilly - Designing for the overlooked user we will all become

We crave connection at every age – including our golden years. Technology has amplified our ability to connect on a global scale, but older users have been largely left behind. We’ll share what Ryman Healthcare and Journey Digital learnt when designing an app for a diverse group of users with an average age of 80.

Transcript

1. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. www.captionslive.au | captionslive@outlook.com | 0447 904 255 UX Australia UX Australia 2023 Thursday, 24 August 2023 Captioned by: Bernadette McGoldrick & Kasey Allen
2. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 42 useful. So, that's that one. OK! Our next talk, we've got Emily and Eilish joining us on stage. There they are - hello! Come on up. They're gonna be talking through a case study on something that they designed for people with an average age - or with an age of, sort of, 80 years of age! Awesome. Welcome. (APPLAUSE) EMILY UNDERWOOD: Awesome. Morning. Can you hear us OK? Test run? Hello! Yes? Good. Awesome. Thank you so much. And also thank you to Alina for starting that up about talking about inclusive design, because we'll be touching on that as well. But like Steve said, slightly different, a bit of a use case of what we have been doing. My name is Emily Underwood. I'm the UX UI design lead at Ryman Healthcare. EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: And I'm Eilish Out-O'Reilly. I'm a senior UX designer who has recently made the move across the ditch. But before that, I spent four years at Journey Digital. We have been working together for the last two years now and would love to tell you what we have been up to. Our focus has been on elevating the independent resident experience. Independent residents are one of the many groups that Ryman cater for across their retirement villages in New Zealand but also here in Australia. Our goal has been to improve their sense of freedom, connection, and wellness. Doing so by helping them keep informed about the goings-on in their village, engage about the activities and events that we put on for them. Through this, we have created many products and processes, all with this goal of enabling them to get the most out of village life. Along this journey, we have learnt a lot, and it has prompted us to reflect on our design processes and practices, and that's what we want to share with you today. Our three key takeaways for designing for the overlooked user, that all of us will eventually become.
3. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 43 EMILY UNDERWOOD: Might need to do a bit of moving around! So, let's start with the importance of building trust through rapport. So, independent residents live in our Ryman villages, either in townhouses or apartments. They might still work and volunteer in the community, have active social lives, drive their own cars, and kind of get up to their own thing outside of the village. The minimum age to move in is 70 but the average age is more like 80, maybe even a bit higher. So, if they want to, they've got their active social lives outside, but if they want to, there's a lot of activities that Ryman puts on for them as well. Things like dance classes or men's carpentry workshops, outings to wineries, or even trips to go jump off the Sky Tower - New Zealand's tallest building. (LAUGHTER) So, they can take advantage of the comfort, convenience and connection of village life but have peace of mind that they can move on within the village, should their needs change. So, think of someone you know who's 80 or older, a grandparent, maybe, and what it might be like designing a digital product for them. This is what we have been doing. This is probably the most removed from a user group that we have ever been. Us, still kind of young, who grew up using technology, social media, the internet, and couldn't imagine a day without our devices. Compared to our residents, many of whom only got a smartphone during COVID so that they could use the COVID Tracer app or FaceTime their family. They grew up using forms of technology that are now largely outdated. Think about entertainment, banking, communication - so much of that is now digital. And many older people feel like digital has replaced perfectly fine ways of doing things. And often the needs of the people in this age group haven't been considered when developing these new services. They feel like their only choice is to get with it or be left behind. So, our starting point was to really bridge that gap between us and them.
4. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 44 It was important for us to really understand what their needs were, so we could better understand how we could design a tool for them. We wanted to build up that trust and make sure that we could really show them that we cared. When we first started the project and went into villages to do our research, residents often didn't really know what we were there to do. Some used the opportunity to ask for help because they thought we were tech support. (LAUGHTER) And many others took one look at us and thought, "They're young, they won't get it, they won't listen." They felt vulnerable because they thought that we were coming in to test their abilities and test how good they were with using technology. So, the normal niceties of saying things like, "We're testing our designs or ideas or our concepts here, and not you," just wasn't going to cut it. So, our starting point was to really bridge that gap between us and them. We had to find a way to help them to open up so we could better understand their needs and show that we cared. EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: For older people, time is care. It's not what you talk about with your grandma when you ring that matters, but it's the fact that you do every Thursday, that you show up. With this in mind, we learnt the benefit of a good yarn. We worked long user testing sessions with 20, 30 minutes built in to cover a range of topics - none of which were overly related to our tasks or agendas. I'm talking broad. COVID, baking, Jacinda, a bit of knitting, the vaccine, some of what should probably be avoided at most dinner parties! We went off on tangents and we didn't attempt to reel our residents back in. Believe it or not, listening to Barry tell me how important it is that lawn bowls greens remain even was important! Going off topic was OK. It told us that our vulnerable audience was opening up and letting us in, and that could only be a good thing. Being less rigid allowed us to navigate some pretty tricky territory.
5. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 45 We had to balance not overestimating, nor underestimating, our audience. Placed early on in the chat, a question of, "Do you know what this is?" in regards to a push notification, could either get a confused and intimidated response from a resident, or a scoff at how ignorant we were for thinking that older people don't know how to use phones! So, we kind of changed up. We placed it earlier or further down in the chat, based on the person. Reading the room and adjusting on the fly were important. By reordering our tasks and questions to flow with conversation, it allowed us to be far less clinical and way more natural. I think we need to be careful not to get caught up in this fear of being biased and forget to be human. You know, scripts and testing are here to help us, not hinder us, so if it's not working, improvise. Remember, we're here to get to know our audience, not perform a rigorous test. EMILY UNDERWOOD: Only genuine attention can really help build up that kind of rapport. It takes time and there are no short cuts. You might be a highly qualified UX researcher or designer, up-to-date with the most recent methodologies, but if you go in and you're more focused on the method rather than the purpose, you might come across as somebody who thinks that they know better, who isn't listening, which for vulnerable audiences is often all too familiar. So, that's why it's important to start by building up this trust and rapport. Oh, sorry! EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: Next up, we'll be talking about going beyond the interface. For this project, we had a really nerdy design challenge on our hands. Part one was navigating the intricacies of AAA. We wanted to create something that wasn't a symbol of fragility just because the contrast was higher or the text was bigger. We were determined for it to
6. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 46 not look like one big "I'm old" sticker. Part 2 was designing to a varying exposure to patterns. Some used Instagram, like one of my mates, others didn't know what the word was. This variation meant a lot of the tools in our tool kit were gone, which admittedly, up until this point, didn't quite realise how much we used them. We got genuine questions, such as, "What's an app? What's an Android? Is it a robot? What's a device?" Fair, if you haven't really interacted with technology. I think sometimes we forget that the patterns and language we use are intuitive because they're familiar, not because they're inherently logical. So, as soon as we kind of remove that familiarity, it really meant that everything was up for grabs. I've never had to consider what icon to use to represent location, but the blank stares at happy hour when we put the pin one up told us that we probably had to. We validated everything from the ground up, taking kind of nothing as given - I'm talking scrolling, tapping, opening, closing, everything. We wanted to test what was familiar - sorry, not what was familiar but what was logical. Often, we did our design decisions on more, like, analogue ways of working that kind of resonated a little bit better with the audience. After the design phase, we moved into pilot with this lovely group of residents up here. We had weekly sessions to learn and gather feedback. We were excited but a bit nervous. I feel like there was a bit of pride on the line on whether you did a good job or not. And, ironically, the feedback we got wasn't about the interface at all. The AAA intuitive design only got us table stakes. Yes, it was simple, but so it should be. That didn't make it valuable, it just made it not a terrible experience. EMILY UNDERWOOD: Yep! We realised it was the content that was letting us down. So, our pilot group were getting frustrated that things like activities' descriptions were wrong, the timings weren't accurate, or
7. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 47 activities weren't on the calendar in the first place. Or information like pool closures weren't being posted in the app. So, whilst we were piloting, it was also the first time that the activities teams were using the new system. And they were keeping both the old and new processes going at the same time, and so often couldn't get around to updating things just for our small pilot group. But we knew, moving forwards, that residents were going to have to rely on this app and product to plan their days. So, for example, if the schedule in the app was wrong, and Margaret missed the bus trip to the shops, she would miss out on the ability to go to the supermarket, do her own groceries, which was something that she enjoyed but also that kept her independent, and that was what we ultimately were trying to encourage. So, if the introduction of the app made the village team's lives harder, and made residents feel like they couldn't trust the information in it, this just wasn't going to work. So, we shifted focus. We invested more resources and energy into the design of the portal, the CMS that powers and populates the app. We reduced the load on staff and minimised the effort is takes to create that content. Ultimately, we were competing with previously used paper processes - flyers, printouts - and if it was going to be easier for our teams to just revert back to that, then the whole app would fail. We really needed to simplify the processes for our residents but really also for our village teams. We learnt the hard way that usability testing might show that your product or design is useable, but that doesn't mean it will be used. The information going into residents' hands also needed to be useful and, of course, accurate so that they could continue to rely on it and plan their days and time. We had to make sure that our incredible village teams, who are critical to the success of the app, were also prioritised. Only this would allow us to impact the overall resident experience.
8. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 48 EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: At the end of the day, Margaret won't remember the location icon that I spent hours designing! (LAUGHTER) It will allow her to use the app but it won't be what impacts her life at the village. The app we designed is a small part in facilitating a much larger resident experience. It's about her looking at activities and getting excited about what's gonna come up in her month, it's about her not feeling nervous that her dietary requirements won't be catered for, it's about her sipping a glass of wine, eating salmon, and having a great time with her mates. That's what we should focus on, elevating that. Doing so will not only allow us to create great interfaces but experiences. I think we need to ensure, as designers, that we don't get caught up in ourselves and what challenges us and what makes us tick, in favour of what has real impact for our users. That's easier said than done. I think we could have easily got swept up in, like, the cool challenge of designing for an app for 80-year-olds and, kind of, the uniqueness of that, and forgotten about the admin tool. But that, in itself, the admin tool, was so vital to facilitating the experience that we wanted to target. And I think, if we had done that, it would have been something that was user-friendly but again not something that was used, and certainly not something that had impact on their lives. We need to look broader to create that transformational change. EMILY UNDERWOOD: And that's what we mean by going beyond the interface and the importance of looking at the wider system that it sits in. So, now let's take it a step further and think about solving the whole, or the bigger, problem. When we started talking to residents about the idea of an app that could help them manage their village lives, we got quite the range of responses. (LAUGHTER) Yep. Uh, so some really embraced
9. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 49 this idea of change, and others really not so much! We never kid ourselves that all of our residents would choose to get the app. It's unrealistic, when you look at our current demographic, although, of course, we know that people become more comfortable using technology as the population ages. But it was important for us to make that barrier to entry as low as possible. We wanted the app to be easy for novices but also engaging for those who were more tech-savvy, so that if anyone wanted to give it a go, they could. But giving it a go was also going to take a bit of encouragement for some. Like we said earlier, this audience is wary. Those who haven't embraced digital tools might resent being designed out of society. They feel like technology isn't for them and it's a young person's game. They might think, "If I'm going to fail, why bother? At my age, might as well just save myself that embarrassment." But through getting to know them and building up that rapport that we were talking about earlier, we realised that a large part of that resistance was actually a lack of confidence. They often knew how to do something but just weren't really comfortable doing it on their own. So, we wanted to help build up that confidence. But as we saw with our usability testing, and there was often instant dismissal of what we were saying because we weren't like them. It's simple for us to say, "Oh, it's quite easy," but that wasn't speaking their language, we were just kind of telling them. They didn't want that. So, when we launched at villages, we opted to rope in their peers. Fellow residents who had also been a bit hesitant about the app originally but then became app champions, to share their stories and experiences, and we played these at the launches. So, here's a little snippet of Margaret. Hopefully the video will work. (VIDEO PLAYS)
10. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 50 MARGARET: Initially, I thought what a great idea. And I still think it's a great idea because it reminds us of what's coming up for the week and it reminds us on the day, and it even reminds us half an hour beforehand. It's very, very clever. You can't be nervous because you can't do anything wrong with it. When you're learning things, you do have to fiddle a bit. But if you can't - you can't delete it. I don't think you can! (LAUGHS) (LAUGHTER) EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: We sat down with every resident to onboard them, one-to-one, face-to-face. Again, taking that time to get to know them, easing them into a largely unfamiliar environment. And it paid off. We initially had the target of 40% uptake in villages, and I'm pretty stoked to say that we're sitting around at 70% currently. 70% means we've started to chip away at that novice category and been successful in lowering the barrier to entry and encouraging those who are new to technology to give it a go, which is a massive win. However, we're not Superman either and we can't lower the barrier to entry to someone who doesn't have a phone. So, what happens to them? This was a really large fear. It came up again and again from staff but also from residents, often the most tech-savvy ones. They were worried about what was gonna happen to their neighbour. It was pretty amazing to have our audience really, like, champion inclusivity - it was awesome. We found ourselves constantly reassuring them that we wanted to do the opposite of what they were used to. We didn't want to design them out of an experience or out of a community. EMILY UNDERWOOD: So, instead of taking away the current paper-based
11. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 51 processes that residents were familiar with, we opted to position the app as a valuable alternative and not a forced replacement. The admin portal was key here. We utilised the database of information that powered and populated the app to also generate physical outputs, like a printed calendar. We also trialled things like a TV info channel, or voice interfaces, for making information available in other ways. This allows residents who don't have the app to also stay in the loop, but it also means that the activities team don't have to populate multiple different formats. We knew that better access to village information would lead to residents feeling more connected, which would help retain their sense of independence, and this was our overall goal, not to simply design an app. EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: If we want to be inclusive, we need to consider the idea that one solution might not fit all, and that's OK. 70% uptake of the app doesn't mean that it wasn't a good design or that we didn't do a good job. I think sometimes we overestimate what good interface design can do, especially in an audience like ours. We need to consider a range of approaches that can bring us closer to solving the whole problem. To wrap up, to design, we must understand our audience. We all know that. When doing so for typically overlooked users, we need to invest significant time into building rapport. More than we may even feel necessary. Building trust allows our audience to open up. This will help us gain that deeper understanding off their lives that are so crucial for us to design for. We also need to ensure that, as designers, we don't lose sight of the bigger picture. I think sometimes we have to pull ourselves out of the details that we are so passionate about in order to transform the experiences that truly impact our users. And this transformation might not be entirely digital either, and that's OK. It could be a group of solutions and processes that, together, allow us to, you know, impact the
12. CaptionsLIVE Raw Transcript _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 52 lives of our users, and that should always be our focus. EMILY UNDERWOOD: So, these learnings are applicable to designing for older adults, or products that they might be using. But also it could be applied to designing for many other overlooked user groups. Think about the next billion users who are coming online now from developing countries. Similar to our residents, they haven't grown up using technology, and patterns that are so familiar to us here in the room, they're not recognisable. Or those who have different access needs, who are often overlooked just because they aren't the majority. We really need to adapt our design and research processes to make sure that these diverse user groups also feel heard. EILISH OUT-O'REILLY: We need to remember that best practices and guidelines are just that. They should serve as a starting point but they aren't the law and we don't need to be a stickler for the rules, especially in discovery. We should be open to doing things a little differently. If we focus on prioritising understanding and experience first, and design our processes and practices around that, that's how we'll create truly transformational change. Thank you very much. EMILY UNDERWOOD: Thank you. (APPLAUSE) STEVE BATY: Thank you so much. Wonderful.