A simplified user interface for mobile phones

Abstract: The trend among mobile phones of today is that they are getting smaller at the same time as they are stuffed with more and more functions. As a consequence the phones become more complex and difficult to handle for many users, particularly for people with some kind of physical or cognitive limitation. Still these persons have a need and desire to be able to communicate with their surroundings. The overall goal for this thesis was to develop a prototype of a mobile phone more usable for people with special needs by making changes in the user interface software. In order to succeed with the objective the exact target group had to be determined. We also had to find out what the difficulties are with the mobile phones of today, how to make them more user-friendly for the target group and finally implement some of the ideas in a prototype and test it. During the course of the thesis contacts have been made with people in the target group to determine the problems, get ideas and evaluate the final prototype. The final target group for this thesis includes elderly people, people not used to technology, and persons with light cognitive limitation. The ideas and suggestions that were implemented and tested did seem to make parts of the functionality in the phone easier to understand and use for the test participants. After the testing and evaluation of the prototype it is our opinion that it is possible to make a mobile phone that better suits the persons in our target group, even if it is difficult to make a mobile phone that fits all people.