User Interface/skin for really old folks

[JLang]

My mother is in her mid-eighties, but still lives on her own, and has no particular physical handicaps. Yet. She's got an old Nokia GSM phone that she uses sparingly. Now she's got it into her head that she wants an iPhone or other smartphone. But she is a tad 'computer challenged'. Example: after 20 years of Macs and iMacs she still hasn't grasped the concept of copy/paste (the clipboard)... So I'm foreseeing lots of problems with a smartphone. OTOH: a smartphone has many possibilities a dumbphone doesn't. In this case e.g. videocalling and GPS tracking would be major benefits to a grandmother and great-grandmother. The screen is, however, too small for convenient websurfing or eMailing by an 85 year-old.

So I was thinking: wouldn't it be nice if there was an "old folks app" that overlays the standard smartphone homescreen (with far too many, confusing, possibilities) with a dead simple 'skin', with large sized characters of course, programmable to show only, for instance, 5 choices: phone, text, video calling, navigation, and 'send my position', while all the rest of the smartphone's functionality is hidden and not easily (accidentally) accessible (only to be accessed and programmed by her [grand]children, not by her).

I doubt I'm the only one with an old parent that is desperately trying to keep up with the times, and enjoy its benefits. So what do you think? Is there any software around that might accomplish this?

 

[Darkseas]

I doubt I'm the only one with an old parent that is desperately trying to keep up with the times, and enjoy its benefits. So what do you think? Is there any software around that might accomplish this?

I don't know of any, but I think you can make a good start at it.

1) Put on a photo-less wallpaper of a single color. Yeah, everyone wants pics of the grandkids, but for old eyes, it's hard to separate the tiny icons from the picture. Colors is an app that provides nice solid color backgrounds.

2) Take up the top portion of the screen with a large widget for time and weather. Everyone loves those.

3) Put the apps she would use regularly on the main home screen for her. You say 5, but you've got some flexibility here. You'd certainly want to include these apps:

Phone and maybe voice dial
One of the photo viewing apps, maybe Gallery
GPS or Latitude
Flashlight
Video-calling app
Alarm clock of one form or another

4) Even if you get her a 4.3" screen, I agree that trying to do e-mail, web browsing, Facebook, etc. on a phone wouldn't work well for her. It's a vision thing.

5) I'd also put on the phone an app that will screech to help find the phone. She doesn't need to see it, but either you or she can activate it from another phone or the web to help her find her phone.

I really think that you and she can get her what she wants/needs without a specialized app.

 

[JLang]

If I go that route I think I would need to consider a bigger screen, a tablet, but one with which she can call too! So that would amount to a Galaxy Tab, right? The GTab can do video calling can't it? How is battery life on the GTab? The iPad would be out because it's not portable enough/too heavy for taking out of the house.