Social app for older population

I write this kind of project description for most of my projects. In my opinion, it is very useful for me and for a client to be aware of all the facts regarding the project that was made by extensive research. Maybe this would be useful for some of you guys so I will share it.

Project goal
Redesign an existing app to improve UX and overall accessibility of an application used on laptops and tablets.

My approach
After receiving screens for this project I had a lot of unanswered questions about who and how is using this app. This led me to do extensive research about this app and the target audience and I realized that this app is used by the older people (65+) so that changed my approach towards the final design. People are using this app for socializing with similarly-aged friends, read general information and news, see their scheduled appointments with doctor and be part of an elderly community by joining the classes.

Solution
I stayed away from standard clean and modern design like on many designs that are featured on Dribbble. I did this because the population that is using this app understands straight forward things, no hidden elements or flashy sliders and animations. Design and user-workflows couldn’t be reworked totally because a lot of users are already familiar with this app and it might be hard for them to learn from scratch something that is totally new. I cleaned up the design and improved accessibility by improving contrast and font readability. It was very important that the sections are well defined so that they don’t spend a lot of time searching for information. I also introduced a new menu item labelled “News” because older people often read news and it would be good if they had them all in one place separated from the rest of the content. I would also like to mention that when it comes to redesigning a tool that is already familiar, and its user base is older people we need to be very careful with rearrangement of the elements and “minor” fixes because even the smallest change can make the app unusable. Also, every design of this type should go through user testing. 

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