Smartphone for my Mother

Migrating my mother to use an Android™ Smartphone

I plan to migrate my mother now a senior citizen to use a smartphone. This will be a challenge and a learning experience for me since she is not computer literate so even a smartphone will take time for her to adapt to. She still uses her old keypad phone and I recommended to change her phone because of the following reasons;

1. She likes pictures, her old keypad phone has poor picture and image quality and small screen which is not suitable for her eye sight.

2. Her keypad phone buttons and fonts is too small that she needs to wear glasses to read the letters.

3. Dual Sim, since she still uses two phones.

4. With TV so she can watch her favorite programs while away.

5. Play puzzle games to lessen the possibility of an Alzheimer disease.

Now what brand and model to use, It must be running on Android™ operating system for easy customization, dual sim, with tv and probably more than 1,500mah of battery because she will definitely notice she would be charging constantly if I will get a typical 1,500mah battery phone, and not too expensive brand phone, she don't like buying branded and expensive gadgets would turn her away since she's the one paying.

So with that in mind I got her a Starmobile Energy phone. I tried to customized it to make it easier to use, made the fonts and keypad larger and all, so what is her feedback?

1. She like the 4 inch screen, its big enough to see and its easier to browse the pictures using touch.

2. She commented about the white color, saying dirt would be easily visible, but I don't think that would really matter as its a minor problem.

3. Using the user interface is confusing.

So re-branding the user interface is the way to go for her to easily use the phone. The default interface is composed of the icons that I need to change. So I made this kind of user interface that works for her. I created an all widget desktop screens.

Screen-1 is a dialpad where she can input load codes or saving numbers in the contacts by just an input of the numbers.

Then when you swipe it going to Screen-2 is the contacts, she can browse her contacts and by pressing a name, a popup will appear whether to Call or send SMS.

Screen-3 is the SMS widget messages, where she can read the inbox easily.

Screen-4 is some icons like Camera, Gallery, Calculator, Calendar, FM, Music, Alarm clock and Puzzle games.

Removing the App drawer and Docks as its not needed yet and will only make the interface complicated and confusing but you can use a gesture swipe up for the app drawer to show incase. I also used Perfect Keyboard app for the keypad T9 type, so I can adjust the keypad fonts size and button width for easy use and better visibility, she does not like those small qwerty buttons.

So there you go, a phone she really likes. The interface is nice, just thinking of a good business out of it.

 Android is a trademark of Google Inc.