Understanding how to design health data visualizations for Chilean older adults on mobile devices

Mobile devices, including activity trackers and smartwatches, can help older adults monitor health parameters passively and unobtrusively. Most user interactions with small devices consist of brief glances at the time or notifications. Consuming information from small displays poses challenges, which have been seldom studied from the perspective of older users. In this paper, we worked with older adults towards creating health data visualizations for them for small devices. We conducted a mixed-methods study with 30 older adults, in which we (1) conducted group discussions to understand participants’ opinions, (2) measured times taken to interpret health data visualizations with and without progress information, (3) measured how much information they could manage to see during brief glances. When data was visualized without progress indicators, participants took less time to understand the data and made fewer errors. Participants preferred health data visualizations that featured peaceful, and positive pictorial representations. We present design opportunities for older adults’ data visualizations in small devices