Alipay launches senior mode. Why is it so urgent to make Internet platforms suitable for the elderly?

We spend more than six hours a day holding our mobile phones, and we cannot imagine how difficult life is for the elderly in this interconnected smart era.

As all the processes and life around them become automated and online, those who are used to the "offline" mode are often blocked. "A health code cannot be opened, a gas bill cannot be paid, and a doctor's appointment cannot be made" may make them feel caught in a dilemma.

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According to the "Statistical Report on the Development of Internet in China", there are more than 250 million people over the age of 60 in China, but nearly 200 million of them have never been exposed to the Internet.

For those who were born in the 1960s, 1950s, or even 1940s, and who have gone through the era of food rationing, supply and marketing cooperatives, and buying overnight train tickets, how to adapt to today's smart lifestyle has become a "digital divide" that blocks their normal life.

This has also become one of the important responsibilities that today's society and many technology companies need to bear.

Recently, Alipay announced at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that it has fully launched the Senior Mode. This also means that as of the first half of this year, another technology giant has handed in its homework among the first batch of apps named by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for aging-friendly transformation.

Internet elder mode is launched intensively

In fact, the original meaning of the "senior mode" was to keep the elderly away from the information age.

In 2012, during the first wave of smartphone popularization, in order to lower the threshold for elderly people to use smartphones, many mobile phone manufacturers launched "senior mode" in their systems, closing the original various application APPs and providing only the most basic functions such as calls and text messages.

However, this old-age model has more to do with restricting terminal products in the smart era to the past feature phone model. Looking through the user reviews at the time, it neither solved the problem nor gained recognition from users at the time.

Since then, with the emergence of QR code payment and various quick APP applications, the concept of elderly mode has gradually changed. The rapid growth in the number of elderly netizens has also made more Internet industries pay more attention to the actual experience of the elderly group.

According to the latest "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" released by the China Internet Network Information Center, the proportion of Internet users aged 60 and above in China has reached 11.2%, and the growth trend of Internet users in the elderly group is becoming increasingly obvious.

Take Alipay as an example.

Wang Ling, head of the aging-friendly "Ant 315" project of Ant Group's consumer rights protection project, said: "In the past three years, the number of elderly users of Alipay has increased 4.5 times, and the growth rate in third-tier and lower-tier regions is even higher, reaching 5.5 times."

With the increasing number of elderly Internet users and the substantial growth of the silver economy, it has become increasingly critical to properly improve the user experience of elderly Internet users in today's smart applications, allowing the elderly group to experience these smart technologies easily, safely and effectively, and avoid repeating the "elderly mode mistakes" of smartphones.

In 2020, the State Council and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued documents to clearly require the resolution of the elderly's experience problems in using smart technology. Starting from January 2021, a one-year special campaign for the adaptation of Internet applications to the elderly and barrier-free transformation will be organized nationwide.

We need to help the elderly cross the digital divide and fill it up

Perhaps many people think that the modification of the senior version of the APP can be achieved directly by simply enlarging the font icons and reducing the number of operation pages.

Wang Yan had thought about this at first: "It is inconvenient for the elderly to type, so we can guide them to send voice messages; they don't like complexity, so only the most commonly used functions are placed on the homepage; if the elderly don't know how to use it, we can enlarge the customer service icon and words so that they can consult with one click."

However, during actual demand collection and user surveys, they discovered that this was not the case at all.

The first is that users’ ability to use mobile Internet is too weak compared to young people. Those function buttons developed by product managers to be extremely clear and simple are full of riddles for them.

Many elderly people do not understand the difference between verification codes, payment passwords, and bank card passwords, and do not know what +86 means.

Voice input seems simple, but many elderly people don’t understand why they have to “talk” to their phones.

Customer service is a profession that is very unfamiliar to them, and one-third of the elderly can say “what is customer service”.

The use of some functions requires the authorization and consent of the elderly, but many of them don’t understand what they need to agree to.

This also means that more user education is needed for the elderly to operate the functions correctly. In addition, another major difficulty for the elderly in the digital age is financial risk.

According to the "Internet Survey Report on Internet Use and Risks of Middle-aged and Elderly People" released by the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, the proportion of Internet users in my country aged 50 and above has reached 10.4%. As middle-aged and elderly people still have certain shortcomings in Internet usage, they have become the target group for various crimes such as telecommunications network fraud, pyramid schemes, and rumors.

In the era of intelligence, it is a major challenge for the elder mode to satisfy the needs of the elderly for online shopping, community life, taxi-hailing and other applications while ensuring the security of their financial transactions, which is particularly important for Alipay.

During the trial operation of Alipay's "Senior Mode", on the one hand, the original interfaces of the homepage, wealth, citizen center, mobile phone recharge, application center, etc. were readjusted according to the age characteristics of the elderly group, and a large number of functions that are not frequently used by the elderly were cut off, making the operation direct, simple and easy to use; on the other hand, some functions commonly used by the elderly, such as scanning, payment, cashier, bill page and other scenes, were adapted to large fonts so that users can see more clearly; furthermore, unnecessary marketing push and pop-ups were removed to reduce disturbance to elderly users.

It is worth mentioning that the Alipay senior mode has also optimized the service interface. In addition to the simplified text and image mode, a "telephone service" function is also configured on the [My Customer Service] interface. People over 65 years old can directly access the manual customer service after clicking.

Wang said that since the launch of the senior mode, Alipay has received a lot of feedback from the elderly and netizens, and we are still continuing to optimize it. In the future, we will also make elderly-friendly transformations in scenarios such as daily payment and travel, and optimize automatic deduction/password-free payment scenarios that the elderly are more concerned about.

In addition, in response to the problem of weak user base and the need to ensure financial security, the Alipay aging-friendly team has proactively proposed three new solutions: senior classes, blue vests and warm hotlines.

The first is the senior citizen classroom service.

This public welfare project was launched at the end of 2019. Its goal is to teach the elderly how to use mobile phones safely. It covers more than 30 courses, including mobile phone safety tutorials, mobile phone basics, and advanced digital life. In addition, this public welfare class also incorporates some mobile phone functions and anti-fraud knowledge into the lyrics of square dances based on the characteristics of the elderly group's activities, so that some aunts can learn how to prevent fraud while dancing in the square.

In addition, Alipay's senior classroom has also recruited senior officials to tailor courseware for seniors to quickly learn how to use smartphones.

Among them, there was an elderly official who was selling apples through live broadcast while teaching his elderly friends how to do live broadcast; there was an elderly official who printed out his own quick-learning manual on smartphones and gave them away for free to the elderly or young people in Hangzhou on Father's Day.

The second is the Blue Vest Project.

This project is specifically designed to solve the problem that no one has taught the elderly how to use health codes, scan codes to board a bus, and ask for directions when taking a taxi. It will be implemented from March 2021.

During the three months of trial operation, the Blue Vest Project carried out more than 500 financial fraud prevention education sessions across the country, provided more than 600 community-based services across the digital divide, and provided voluntary services to more than 70,000 people in total.

In addition to Alipay itself, relying on the Alibaba ecosystem, companies such as Wasu Group, Hello Travel, Taobao, Tmall, AutoNavi, Ele.me, Intime, RT-Mart, Cainiao, AutoNavi, and Hema are also involved.

Finally, there is the warm and cozy line.

Compared with the previous two projects, the biggest feature of the Nuanyangyang Line is its wide coverage.

The Nuanyangyang hotline was launched in February this year. It is a one-click direct call-in to an artificial fast channel specially provided for the elderly.

Any elderly person over the age of 65 who calls the Alipay customer service hotline 95188 will be directly connected to the manual customer service, where they can directly consult and solve life problems, such as the use of health codes, taking public transportation, mobile phone recharge, paying for water, electricity and gas, etc.

At present, the Nuanyangyang hotline customer service staff receives an average of more than 10 calls for help from the elderly every day to solve thousands of user problems.

The value of senior model

On July 8, 2021, after three months of trial operation of the senior mode, Alipay announced at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that the aging-friendly project has been fully launched and officially opened to all elderly groups.

According to Leifeng.com, in addition to the full launch of Alipay's senior mode, the Beijing Communications Administration recently revealed that the transformation of the first batch of 115 websites and 43 commonly used apps participating in the action is being accelerated, and it is expected that before the end of this year, more than 20 elderly-friendly versions of the apps will be launched.

The promotion and completion of these transformations and ecological networks may become a powerful network tool. On the one hand, it can help the elderly solve today's online application problems. On the other hand, it also means that an ecological network that includes payment, food delivery, maps, taxis, medical care, travel, and other smart life applications that are more suitable for the elderly to socialize, live, and connect various digital changes is about to be formed.

Slow down the speed of the Internet for the elderly, so that they can live more comfortably, confidently and with dignity in the digital age.

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