Technology acceptance, social marketing and the design of a mobile health app to support active aging amongst senior citizens in the Asia Pacific region

This chapter presents the findings from a usability study on health apps on older members of the population in the Asia-Pacific region. Life expectancy continues to increase around the world, and this has long-term implications for society in terms of managing the health care needs of an ageing population. Mobile health apps are increasingly seen as a mechanism to help improve the health, independence and quality of life of older individuals. However, health professionals highlight that the natural process of ageing has, in general, an adverse impact on people's physical and cognitive functions; hence, closer interactions between health care and technology researchers are necessary to ensure that health apps correctly address the needs of this target population. This study shows that several design aspects of health apps in the marketplace require modification to produce robust, reliable, meaningful and usable technologies. The research draws on the concept of usability and the technology acceptance model to explain the factors that predict the successful adoption of health apps amongst senior members of the population in Singapore and Australia.