Baidu for the Elderly Content and Service Mobile App

Press Kit

Unique Properties

China is facing serious aging problems. Baidu App for the Elderly provides rich content and services for the elderly. It also provides a systematic, age-friendly design which is convenient for the users to read and listen contents, and use the app. In combination with different tools and AI technologies such as voice and image synthesis, the app offers abundant services for the elderly to help them enrich life, enjoy digital services, and keep up with the digital era.

Dimensions & Packaging

Baidu App for the Elderly has a great ability to adapt to both Android and iOS systems.

Tags

UX, the Elderly, Age-friendly, AI, Online Service

Production Technology

Baidu has abundant accumulation of AI technology. Based on its AI algorithm, the app offers personalized contents that meet the elderly's interests. Videos with intelligent subtitles help the elderly acquire information easily. By voice synthesis, the elderly can record family members' voices to broadcast texts which can bring emotional companionship to them and solve dyslexia and visual fatigue. Voice and image search help them search by saying or taking photos.

Design Challenge

The biggest challenge is that there are neither related aging design standards nor apps that designed for the elderly in the industry. Therefore, after systematic research, we designed an age-friendly information structure and layout that simplify the operation of the app, which makes the elderly not only willing to use, but also can easily handle it. We also cooperated with CSIA to formulate China's first age-friendly design standard, which will be applied to more and more elderly products.

Project Duration

The project started in December 2020 and debuted in China in January 2021, it is still going. The team members were based in Beijing, China.

Operation Flow

All the contents can be both read and listened. Unified feed layout and enlarged touch area enable the elderly to use the app with simple gestures. Voice input and image input methods increase user experience. Larger fonts improve dyslexia. Simpler and straightforward copywriting makes the functions easier to understand. All these systematic, elderly-oriented designs make the app easy to read, listen to, operate, and understand.

Research

We had questionnaires and interviews to build a comprehensive understanding of demands of elderly people deeply. The elderlies are facing physiological function degradation and emotional loneliness. But the existed products only solve basic experience problems by increasing the font size and simplifying complex functions. Through the usability test and eye-tracking experiment, we designed the age-friendly design system. It is combined with AI technologies to meet emotional demands of the elderly.

Inspiration

The aging population has reached 264 million in China. However, there are few APPs are specifically designed for the elderly to meet their demands. Firstly, the elderly cannot get information and services equally because of the degradation in vision, hearing, and cognition. Secondly, they are forced to become empty nesters because the young moved to big cities for opportunities. Older people are vulnerable to loneliness. Therefore, Baidu takes social responsibility and developed the app.

Image Credits

Copyrights belong to Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd，2021

Patents

patented.ZL201510535732.5.Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.2015, patented.JP6785921..Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.2020,patented.US10199036b2.Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.2019
Copyrights belong to Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd，2021

Colors of Baidu for the Elderly Content and Service Mobile App