[Guest Post by my father-in-law, William Haueisen, PhD., CEO of Sterling Research Group (SRG). William agreed to share his recent experience with the iPad touching the older generation that has been sadly overlooked by recently technology innovations. That older generation is rapidly growing and sometimes referred to as the silver-market because of their under-addressed needs and under-tapped purchasing power.
About SRG: SRG designs and executes high-quality, and high-volume, customer satisfaction surveys.]
Gavin and Maddie’s great grandmother, aged 86, has suffered from macular degeneration for a decade. In earlier times she was an avid reader, sometimes with multiple books “under process” at the same time. But the macular degeneration has robbed her of any ability to read. She “reads” now only by sitting under a bright light and holding a fairly strong magnifying glass. That is until a week or two ago.
Great Grandmom lives in a retirement center so meals are always a big social time. Recently she’s been hearing her friends talk about Kindles. And while she hadn’t actually seen one, she had a feeling that it might be something that could help her read again. So we took her on a shopping trip, first to Best Buy to look at Kindles. They were interesting and she was fascinated with the idea of the thing, but unfortunately, even with the text enlarged to its maximum, she couldn’t read from a Kindle except with the ubiquitous magnifying glass. Part of the problem was the lack of contrast. But, even though it didn’t help her, she sure liked the basic idea of the thing.
Next we took her to Barnes and Noble to see a Nook. No dice, not enough real estate, and otherwise the same problem with lack of contrast.