Thursday, June 17, 2010

IPad and elderly - magic device contributing to reduce Digital divide ?

In the series, what can you do with an IPad, here is a small funny video (thanks Pascal !). Beyond this funny marriage between IPad and Velcro, I also made some experience, leaving the beast in the hands of elderly.
It's just incredible ! This is neither a quantitative study nor a qualitative one. No statistical value - just feedback. Even 70+, reluctant to use Internet, started to naturally browse with the device. Reading a book was perceived as pleasant, especially since you can increase the font size. They managed to write an email (an address, a subject, a text) and read other ones. Gestures were perceived as very natural. Watching video was also nice but will not replace TV screen - too small for long period of time. Photos were naturally appreciated, not only due to the device but also due to the persons appearing on pictures.

As you see, no complain about lack of video camera, USB ports or slots for memory cards as you can expect ;-) The single negative comment was about the wastage - the back of the page you turn in iBooks is white. Apple could have printed both sides of pages. What a wastage of paper !

A study published in France states that 85% of persons who want to buy an IPad don't know the capabilities and have no idea about what they will actually do when they'll receive it. Funny to see that persons who don't necessarily want an IPad know how they would make use of it. A special kind of "Digital divide".

Just try out and share with us what you observe.
To be continued ...

Benoit

No comments:

Post a Comment