Understanding the senior demographic

To inform the design of our music player, we first looked to gain a better understanding of seniors in general. We started by interviewing seniors and observing them in their homes, which is the context that our music player will specifically address. We also gathered information about products that are being marketed to seniors by visiting several retail stores and reviewing media targeted at senior citizens.

Several main ideas emerged as we researched our target user group. We discovered useful usability tips and realized that, in reality, seniors' needs are not well understood in today's market, especially in regards to digital music players. Our most informative user research came from our interviews with seniors whereupon we uncovered these music player & music listening patterns:

• People tend to listen to albums vs. individual song
• Seniors typically listen to the radio or to CDs
• Seniors are pretty settled in their music listening habits
• Seniors find listening to music enjoying and relaxing
• Seniors use music as a means to have a social connection - most often to other peoples