XR UI design considerations for elderly people

XR UI design considerations for elderly people Theofilos Papadopoulos1, Konstantinos Evangelidis2, Theodore Kaskalis1, Georgios Evangelidis1 and Stella Sylaiou2 1 Department of Applied Informatics, School of Information Sciences, University of Macedonia, 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece 2 Department of Surveying & Geoinformatics Engineering, International Hellenic University, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece Abstract Designing a User Interface (UI) requires the consideration of various specifications governing traditional critical components, such as the layout and the structure of the interface, the style of the text, the colours, the controls and others. In addition, modern UIs are designed to adjust to different types of end-user equipment (e.g. smart devices) and to complicated interactions that may be influenced by the exact geographic position of the end user. Most of today’s UIs offer navigation functionalities, location-based interactivity and, in some cases, immersive experiences via extended realities (XR). Considering accessibility and inclusivity issues, the degree of difficulty towards a cohesive, functional, and visually appealing UI design dramatically increases, and appealing challenges arise. The present study focuses on UI design issues for XR UIs providing immersive experiences to elderly people. It aims to identify those interface design features that should be rethought to serve this type of user efficiently. The need to focus on this combination of apps and users is the progressively increasing number of XR applications dealing with cultural heritage content promotion. Old people are an audience highly interested in cultural heritage content, while the revival of past events via XR technology may produce more stimuli for them than younger people. On the other hand, people of higher ages face more difficulties adapting to technological developments. Specialising in the design of an XR interface, the particularities related to elderly people should also be considered. For example, the complexity of the portion of the interface dealing with MR/XR/VR modes, the placement of soft buttons depicting major functionalities in the central screen and the incorporation of special audio guidance are some of the key functionalities that have been tested during experiments with elderly people and reconsidered based on their feedback. Experiments took place in the framework of FIREFLY project (https://firefly.athenarc.gr/), which aims to foster the enjoyment of culture by elderly people. The platform adopted and tailored to the needs of senior citizens was MERGIN’ MODE (https://merginmode.com/), a project successfully completed and highlighted the convergence of Geoinformation technologies and XR for monument demonstration.