The ever-evolving technological advancements have made mobile phones more affordable and easy to use. They are being adopted by numerous new groups of users, including the elderly. However, they are not a homogenous group of people in terms of their needs, as well as barriers to use when interacting with user interfaces and other smartphone functions. Many face motor and/or cognitive challenges that limit the usability of the available smartphone functionalities. This raises the question to what degree are the needs and barriers to use of the elderly considered in the development phase of smartphones. In this thesis, we therefore focus on the analysis of official guidelines for development of the Android and iOS Operating systems user interfaces, with the aim of assessing how and to what extent these guidelines consider specific recommendations for designing age-friendly smartphone user interfaces. The results show that official Android and iOS operating systems design guidelines account for users with special needs (sight, hearing, touch, and cognitive impediments) and that the needs of the elderly are not directly addressed. Hence, they also do not always provide coherent guidance in terms of design specifications.
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