User Requirements of Elderly Companion Travel Mobile Application Using Personas

The elderly population in Malaysia has increased rapidly, which has made it difficult to engage in regular social activities. Many children in today’s business society are unable to accompany their aging parents with household tasks, social interactions, and physical activities because of work commitments and financial limitations. Companion travel services are thus viewed as an alternate form of assistance for accompanying the elderly to hospital visits, grocery shopping, and travel when their children are not available. However, companionship travel services are very limited in Malaysia, and the existing applications, such as Makcik Travels, is troublesome to use by the elderly due to their complex user interfaces and processes. The use of the WhatsApp application to book a private chauffeur is not effective for searching for available chauffeurs and setting an appointment. Thus, in this study, an elderly companion travel mobile application is developed to support the social care of older persons in Malaysia. The persona technique was used to capture the user’s requirements through narrative and storytelling. The requirements were then evaluated using heuristic evaluation with human-computer interaction (HCI) experts and several elderly users. Similar to e-hailing services to book transportation on-demand, this application offers the same service with an additional companion function. The elderly can arrange for a chauffeur to go with them to a specific destination, and this chauffeur will help them fulfill their tasks, taking into account the constraints of the elderly’s capabilities, such as pushing a wheelchair. The distinctive features of this application include the user profile, chauffeur availability search, request for the companion service, acceptance of the request by a registered chauffeur, estimation of fare, online payment, and order service history. These elderly companion mobile apps offer the possibility for improved social care services, particularly in the self-management of the elderly, as the elderly adapt to mobile technology more and more.