My biggest gain is to re-understand the Communication Gap between the medical system and the elderly.
In the past, I thought the problem mainly came from technology – the elderly would not use smartphones or medical apps. But the teacher made me realise that the real obstacle is not only the technology, but also the way the medical system expresses information, and there is a difference between the way the elderly understand the information.
Medical platforms usually use technical terms, complex processes and default users with certain numerical experience. When faced with these contents, many elderly people will give up using them because they are worried about making mistakes, not understanding medical vocabulary, unable to judge the next step, and even for fear of causing losses. Therefore, what they really need is not just larger fonts or simpler buttons, but a way of communication that can build understanding and trust.
Another concept that impressed me was Implicit Needs.
In the interview, the elderly participants may say, “The words are too small” and “The page is too complicated”. These are explicit needs. But the teacher reminded me that what researchers really need to think about is the reasons behind these superficial problems.
For example, what they are really worried about may not be the font, but the fear of operational errors, lack of understanding of system feedback, inability to judge whether the appointment is successful, or lack of trust in digital medical care itself. Compared with directly modifying the interface, these deeper psychological and communication problems are the content that design research really deserves attention.
In the tutorial, there is another question that makes me think:
Why can many elderly people be proficient in using daily digital platforms such as WeChat and Alipay, but can’t use medical platforms smoothly?
Many elderly people have been able to send WeChat messages, use voice chat, scan codes to pay, and even obtain information through short videos. It’s not that they can’t use smartphones, but they encounter new obstacles when facing the medical system.
In addition to continuing to interview the elderly, I should also increase interviews with doctors or medical workers and conduct observation studies as much as possible. Compared with the interviewee’s description of himself in the interview, real observation of the interaction between doctors and patients and the actual operation process of the elderly can find more behavioural problems and communication faults.
Why can the elderly be proficient in using daily digital platforms, but it is difficult to use digital medical systems? What is the essential difference between the medical platform and the platform they already trust?
I plan to reorganize the research questions, analyse the explicit and implicit needs in the interview, increase doctor interviews, compare the interaction differences between WeChat, Alipay and medical platforms, and further understand the experience of the elderly in real medical scenarios in combination with observation and research.
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