User interface design guidelines for smartphone applications for people with Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is often responsible for difficulties in interacting with smartphones; however, research has not yet addressed these issues and how these challenge people with Parkinson's (PwP). This paper specifically investigates the symptoms and characteristics of PD that may influence the interaction with smartphones to then contribute in this direction. The research was based on a literature review of PD symptoms, eight semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals and observations of PwP, and usability experiments with 39 PwP. Contributions include a list of PD symptoms that may influence the interaction with smartphones, a set of experimental results that evaluated the performance of four gestures tap, swipe, multiple-tap, and drag and 12 user interface design guidelines for creating smartphone user interfaces for PwP. Findings contribute to the work of researchers and practitioners' alike engaged in designing user interfaces for PwP or the broader area of inclusive design.