Adapting an In-Flight Entertainment system to include Older Users

Sammanfattning: Every year, the average age of the population is increasing as people live longer and fewer children are born. With age, it is not uncommon for cognitive abilities to deteriorate, affecting the ability to learn new things and process new information. As digitalization continues, some people are left behind and thus experience difficulties in using the newly developed digital environments. This is a problem that creates a demand for a more inclusive design of digital products that is to be used by everyone, including older adults with reduced cognitive abilities. This thesis aims to investigate how older adults are experiencing an existing In-Flight Entertainment system (IFEs) and with that knowledge implement improvements in the design where problem areas have been found, resulting in a broadened system where older adults feel more comfortable. A thoroughly iterative design process, mainly inspired by Design Thinking, has been conducted with a user-centered design approach in mind. The project included amongst other things a literature study, empathizing with the users in the forms of interviews, surveys, workshops, and user tests to define the existing problems, and then creating different Lo-Fi prototypes with implemented improvements aimed at more testing with the target group. The result is presented as a Hi-Fi prototype with solutions for the problem areas discovered, together with arguments for the various design decisions. Some improvements that have been implemented in the Hi-Fi prototype are fewer steps within the system that create greater transparency, clear scroll indicators when needed, and a design skeleton that gives the system consistency. Beyond that, an overall conclusion of this thesis was the importance of including end-users in the design process to prevent bias from taking place.