Mind the gap - between developer and older end users of health technologies

Abstract

Ageing citizens and the use of ICT is discussed to enhance care productivity and promote elderly’s quality of life. At the same time when it comes to the end users, elderly people might be the group farthermost from the developers of technology – placing the elderly in highest risk for fall into the gap between end user and developer of services. This gap might exists and contributing to designed e-health not meeting the elderly´s need and ability to use these services. In order to minimize this gap, it needs to be defined and debated. This paper is discussing elderly's use of e-health services and what challenges they might experience using the digital service designed for them. An informed article search was done followed by a narrative review of different primary studies. The result of the review is a collection of problems revealed in areas of technical difficulties, issues about the user's attitude and complications with the quality of the information available. From the research that has been carried out, it is easy to conclude that the gap is real but seemingly minimal. Further, we would argue that it should not be a challenge for the digital developers in 2017 to close this gap. We firmly urge the developers to alter these minor issues in the design process, thus bridging the gap by inviting elderly to the design process.