43 apps including WeChat, Alipay, and Douyin will undergo "aging-friendly" transformation

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According to domestic media reports, Liu Liehong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced today that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will launch a one-year "Special Action for Internet Application Adaptation for the Elderly and Accessible Renovation" starting in January 2021. The first batch will give priority to promoting 115 websites in eight categories and 43 apps in six categories for adaptation for the elderly and accessibility .

Aging-friendly and barrier-free renovations are aimed at solving the difficulties encountered by special groups such as the elderly and the disabled when using smart technologies such as the Internet.

The first batch of 6 categories of apps that are suitable for the elderly and have been upgraded to be barrier-free include news information, social communication, life shopping, financial services, travel and medical health, including:

News and information: Tencent News, Sina Weibo, Toutiao

Social communication: (1) Social: WeChat, QQ; (2) Telecommunications: Telecom, Mobile, and Unicom online business halls

Lifestyle shopping: (1) Shopping: Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Xianyu; (2) Food delivery: Ele.me, Meituan; (3) Housing: Lianjia, Beike; (4) Entertainment: Tik Tok, Huoshan Video, Himalaya Audiobooks, iQiyi, Youku, Kugou, Changba; (5) Tools: Baidu, Sogou

Financial services: (1) Payment: Alipay, WeChat Pay; (2) Banking: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Bank of Communications

Travel: (1) Maps: Baidu Maps, Amap, Tencent Maps; (2) Online car-hailing: Didi Chuxing; (3) Ticketing: Railway 12306, Ctrip Travel

Healthcare: (1) Medical consultation: 114 Health, Good Doctor Online, WeDoctor; (2) Pharmaceuticals: JD Daojia, Dingdang Express Pharmacy

The special action plan points out that for the elderly, more products with large fonts, large icons, high-contrast characters and other functional features should be launched, and more companies should be encouraged to launch interface modes with simple interfaces and convenient operations, and realize various barrier-free functions such as one-key operation and text input prompts. The ability to recognize dialects should be improved to facilitate the use of smart devices by the elderly who do not speak Mandarin.

In addition, in response to the problem that there are too many forced advertisements in current Internet applications that can easily mislead the elderly, the Internet websites and mobile APPs will be transformed into elderly-friendly versions, care versions, and barrier-free versions. There will no longer be advertising plug-ins , and payment operations, especially, will not have any induced buttons .