{"id":28268,"date":"2025-01-21T19:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T19:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/designing-streaming-experiences-for-seniors\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T19:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T19:17:14","slug":"designing-streaming-experiences-for-seniors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/designing-streaming-experiences-for-seniors\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Streaming Experiences for Seniors"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>Reading Time: <\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

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\"Article<\/div>\n

As I celebrate my one-year anniversary of relocating to my hometown of St. Louis to care for my 84-year-old mother, I\u2019m looking at 2025 as a year of improved UI and UX for seniors, particularly those with memory issues. My mom has dementia, Alzheimer\u2019s, and Type 2 diabetes, which requires daily insulin injections along with myriad prescription drugs. Because I do the majority of my technical work remotely, I\u2019m usually at home with Mom for most of the day and leave her to watch TV while I\u2019m at my desk.<\/p>\n

Prior to my arrival, Mom had been using AT&T U-Verse for her CTV subscription, and that service included an STB with an old-fashioned DVR, recording her favorite shows directly to local storage. The unit included a remote with easy-to-use buttons that allowed her to go straight to the DVR recording list and the EPG. She\u2019s since migrated to DirecTV Stream, which was not and is still not an easy transition for her.<\/p>\n

Is this simply a case of an elderly subscriber who can\u2019t learn a new remote, or can we create a better environment for her and others in a similar plight? Here\u2019s my \u201cto do\u201d list for any UI\/UX designer on staff at the major streaming providers or TV manufacturers such as TCL, Roku, Samsung, and Sony:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Design a \u201cSenior Edition\u201d remote: Create a special edition remote for additional charge or purchase that has bigger buttons that are labeled with text, not just symbols. Specifically, these features should be much more accessible on a remote:
    a.<\/strong> Play\/Pause button: For some reason, even though my mom operated VCRs for decades prior to the digital revolution, the classic play\/pause button on most remotes is not immediately apparent to her. Label this button \u201cPlay\/Pause.\u201d
    b.<\/strong> Front-facing buttons: All controls should be on the front face of the remote and not hidden on the side of the remote as the volume up\/down and mute are on the standard Roku remote.
    c.<\/strong> Guide Button: Make a clearly labeled \u201cGuide\u201d button that is context-sensitive to the app loaded, rather than kicking you out to the Roku guide.
    d.<\/strong> DVR button: Similarly, there should be a DVR button that loads the DVR list for the app in use. You may even want to label this button \u201cRecordings\u201d so that it\u2019s clear to a wide range of users.<\/li>\n
  2. Design better UIs for D-Pad navigation: All TV navigation is typically based on the \u201cdirectional pad\u201d (D-Pad) navigation using the Up\/Down\/Left\/Right buttons. All streaming services use this type of navigation and present a highlighted color for a frame around the active selection. Unfortunately, this frame isn\u2019t immediately apparent to Mom. There should be a user preference to make this frame much larger and presentable, by at least a 2x or 3x factor.<\/li>\n
  3. Eliminate expandable nav bars: Many streaming services include a left-hand navigation bar that is represented initially with icons, and then, when navigated to with the remote, expands horizontally to reveal the categories associated with each icon, such as \u201cMy Guide,\u201d \u201cMy Library,\u201d and so on. Make a user preference per profile that always shows an expanded view so that memory care users can easily find the guide and recordings.<\/li>\n
  4. Add alarms or reminders specific to elder care: As a caregiver, I have to remind my mom to get up and take a break from watching TV and move around, use the bathroom, and so on. Building a device-wide \u201cbreak\u201d for TV watching would be a game changer\u2014automatically prompting the watcher to stop watching for a specific interval. Ideally, such a timer or alarm would automatically pause the current show being watched. The break could even feature advertising!<\/li>\n
  5. Better error handling: If something isn\u2019t working with a service because of poor Internet connection or speed, don\u2019t use such long timeouts to present the problem, and use better descriptions so that caregivers and seniors alike know what\u2019s going on. Don\u2019t present error codes or technical jargon that the average TV watcher doesn\u2019t understand. If in doubt, present a \u201cRestart TV\u201d option to reboot the device.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I can only imagine that TV subscribers with memory issues are growing in numbers daily, as are the number of caregivers trying to help them enjoy their viewing time. If you need help finding test users, don\u2019t be afraid to reach out to me.<\/p>\n

    Hopefully, 2025 will be a year of better innovation around this demographic\u2019s usability issues.<\/p>\n

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    \n \"Streaming\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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    Reading Time: <\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span> As I celebrate my one-year anniversary of relocating to my hometown of St. Louis to care for my 84-year-old mother, I\u2019m looking at 2025 as a year of improved UI and UX for seniors, particularly those with memory issues. My mom has dementia, Alzheimer\u2019s, and Type 2 diabetes, which requires daily insulin injections along with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ott-platform-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainmentbharat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}