Technology is a never-ending source of inventions. Each day there is a new technological feature added to a smartphone and many other electronic devices. It can be hard for us to understand it and might take a few days to be comfortable with the new features. That is why it becomes difficult for elderly people to know and learn about these features. Elderly people or off on the list are comfortable with smartphones. However, we cannot deny the fact that smartphones are used by elderly people as well as people of other age groups. There are some smartphones in the market which are the simplest features that might be suitable for elderly people. Rather than going to a phone repair service and giving it to your grandparents, you can get them another device.
However, if you have decided to gift your grandparents the latest phone on the market, here are some of the ways that could help you make using a smartphone easier for them:-
- Readable text font
Older people have a hard time catching up with text as their eyesight can lose in with their age. That is why there is a feature on a smartphone that will let us decide the size of the font. We can simply enlarge the font which will be more readable for elderly people.
Settings application—> Display and text size
- Comfortable keyboard
Typing might be another task as the key alphabets are smaller than the text size. You can also help with this situation with the inbuilt settings on your mobile phone.
Settings application —> Display and brightness —> tap on View —> Zoomed
- Setting up the lock screen
It is important to unlock your mobile phone with the passcode. Today we have fingerprint sensors as well as face recognition available on a smartphone which makes it easy for us to Unlock it. If you are setting up a phone for an elderly person then you might want to skip the passcode apart. But as we know that the risk of data theft is high and so the lock screen has to be there. You can simply go for the fingerprint sensor or Face ID.
Settings application —> Face ID or fingerprint sensor
- Setting up the home screen
The home screen is just like the living room of a house. Won’t like things my stuff in here. We need to organise the home screen as especially when it is about an elderly person‘s phone. If you mess up the applications you’re in there then it might be difficult for them to find out the applications and search for them. However, we can also agree with the fact that older users might not even need ample applications on their mobile phones. It is easy for you now to organise a home screen of their mobile phone as there might be minimum applications. Both iPhone and Android will let you arrange applications by dragging them around the screen at your convenience. You can also remove the ones you think will not be in use. You can simply delete them and install them later if you are in need.
- The setting of Shortcuts and favourites
Setting up shortcuts in favourites will make things more accessible for the elderly person. They might have lesser time or might consume a lot of time while they are functioning on a mobile phone. Rather than letting them spend a large amount of time searching for the most useful applications, you can simply design them according to their convenience. For example, you can open the voice call and text favourite contacts on the screen itself. iPhone users can pin the most important contacts in the Messages application to the top. Tapping on the edit pins will help you to do this. You can go ahead and tap on the yellow pin want to add a name to the top. You can now open the contact to the favourite page of the phone.
Android users can pin the contact on the top of the Messages app by starting the Messages application and tapping on the conversation they want to pin. The pin icon at the top of the screen will appear. The user can now create their favourite conversation and add it to the list.
- The setting of customised ringtones for special callers
We did not look forward to degrading any of the elderly people. However, we might agree with the fact that many elderly people might not be aware of reading the names or text messages of people. We have options of many languages on a mobile phone which may make it easier for them. Another way to signal the call of any specific person can be done by customers in the ringtone for each contact.
iPhone users can open the Contacts application and then tap on the person that you want to customise a ringtone. Simply tap on edit and then tap on the ringtone.
Android users can open the Contacts application and tap on the person they want to edit the ringtone for. Go forward and tap on the three thought menu and set the ringtone.
