The research that I am undertaking is ‘mobile phone contents for older people who are over 50 in Australia’. I am a producer of mobile phone contents for older people for this research and I am approaching to this project as a creator and researcher. It is no doubt to say that we are living in the new technology world and especially almost everyone brings his or her mobile phones to everywhere. Like this, mobile phones becomes essential technical and social networking tools these days however older people cannot enjoy the new technological advantages because of lack of specific contents for them. There are two main focuses why I am undertaking this research.
First, the stereotype is that older people won’t like new technologies however it is not. According to cellphone tracker M:Metrics, more than 77% of people age 55 to 64 have mobile phones and the share of the entire U.S. population owning mobile phones is 86%.
Second, the 50-and-up aging group will be the largest group in the future. According to a Boomer Project analysis of Census data, “This age group will grow to 113 million people by 2017. By contrast, the age 18-to 49 demographic traditionally favored by marketers will increase less than 1% to 136 million.” These two reasons are the main reasons why I am doing this research project.
The main research methods that I am taking are Design Research, Research Interviews, Surveys and Internet Research. Firstly Design Research is main methodology among others. Even though it is designed for designers, I will use this to get feed back from older people what they really want to have for their mobile phone contents directly. Also when I have draft of mobile phone contents then I can review the contents that I make before getting the final products. Thus Design Research can help me to interact real people who are going to use the contents that I make.
Secondly, research interviews and surveys also let me allow getting opinions of older people about problems of using mobile phone contents and what they really want to improve with their opinions. Also these methodologies are easily accessible and furthermore they are interactive. Once again, interact is important in this research project.
Lastly, Internet research is essential methodology to gather up-to-date information about new technologies of mobile phones, new trends of mobile phones and new services or contents of mobile phones not only in Australia but also other countries. Also the forums of Internet communities are very helpful to communicate with people as well. The most important thing to use Internet research is the promptness.
The ultimate product of my research project is producing mobile phone contents for older people. This will make older people to have more opportunities to get involve into the new media society also they can produce their own mobile phone contents rather than being passive and relying on the contents that have been made not only for older people. Also this mobile phone contents are not only for marketing purpose to earn money for the mobile phone company. In coming of aging society, older people will be the majority demographic.
