Starting with the rapid adoption of smartphone prices in 2012, people have experienced a decade of rapid technological change. However, the elderly, a large group that is most in need of improving the convenience of life, are difficult to share the convenience brought by the development of informatization with young people. This issue has been a chronically unnoticed issue.
The shift has occurred in the last two years. In November 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the Implementation Plan on Effectively Solving the Difficulties of the Elderly in Using Intelligent Technology (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which provides clearer guidance for technology companies exploring the road of "adapting to aging".
This change is small and imperceptible, but it is silent. At this time, it is the reunion moment of the Spring Festival holiday, and people may find that there are some fragments in the warm time of many families: the children who have returned home are busy teaching their parents and elders to shop in Taobao with the "elder mode", chat and communicate with the "care mode" on WeChat, "one-click car calling" and "telephone car calling" on online ride-hailing platforms such as Didi, and setting up family account numbers for the elderly...
Behind this is the efforts of countless product managers and programmers, and it is once again the power of "technology for good" that tries to push the barriers. This is not easy, technology products "suitable for aging" is not simply "enlarged", it contains how to make "technology more loving" deep proposition. Such a software is loaded not only by the lines of code, but also by the carefulness, kindness and courage of people.
Author | Chen Chen
Edit | Lin Xiu
The "digital divide" for the elderly
Grandma Zhao and her wife sat at the flower bed at the entrance of the community for half an hour. During this time, they did not stop a single taxi. Grandma Zhao's home to the city of the three hospitals did not have a direct bus, before, she accompanied her wife to the hospital for review, are daughters to help call the online car, today the daughter's phone has not been able to get through, they only found that stopping a taxi somehow became so difficult. Finally, there was a taxi parked on the side of the road, there was no one in the car, Grandma Zhao excitedly walked over and asked, but the driver said that he had come to pick up others.
Mr. Zeng considers himself an avant-garde old man. After retiring, he often hangs out with old friends and goes out two or three times a week. For him, a distance of 7 or 8 kilometers is just right for Didi to call a ride-hailing car. However, as he grew older, Mr. Zeng found that his vision began to blur, and he was worried that one day he would not be able to read the words on his mobile phone, which meant that the use of various software would be greatly limited.
This is a natural proposition: technological progress and intelligent trends have made the lives of more people convenient. Taking smart travel as an example, e-hailing cars bid farewell to the inefficiency of waiting for passengers and empty cars on the side of the road, and it can be said that the efficient matching achieved by the big data of e-hailing has largely achieved a win-win situation for drivers and passengers. But the other fact is that very few people pay attention to the other side of the digital divide, those who hover on the side of the road, dazed, people like Grandma Zhao who are left behind by the internet. For them, the change in the choice of travel may be a bit of a surprise, and the empty taxi is always greeting the passengers who book it.
Some pension experts said in an interview that the elderly over 60 years old generally face travel problems, and 20%-30% of the elderly give up traveling because of travel difficulties.
"Elderly people often take the bus, but that doesn't mean there's no demand for taxis." As early as when online ride-hailing was not yet popular, volunteer Wang Fengjin realized this. At that time, she was the captain of the Beijing Lei Feng motorcade, and her phone number had been published in the city evening newspaper, and as a result, she received a car call from fifty or sixty elderly people in one day, many of whom were running to the hospital. She realized that the older generation was mostly frugal and that when it came time to take a taxi, it was really often an "emergency time."
The shift has occurred in the last two years. In 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the Plan. In 2021, the Ministry of Transport held an exchange meeting on the travel experience of facilitating the travel of the elderly, and the transportation authorities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou conducted an in-depth discussion on how to improve the travel services for the elderly with a number of online ride-hailing companies.
With the introduction of policies and the participation of enterprises, the "digital divide" in front of the elderly is being filled.
Start with "think of yourself as an old man."
The participants of the day included Didi Chuxing.
At that time, just 10 days after the "Didi Elderly Edition" Mini Program launched by Didi, this version of the Mini Program has a large font size, no advertising, simple operation, and can achieve "one-click ride-hailing". But Han Libo, the product manager of Didi's "taxi for the elderly", felt that it was "far from good enough".
"We always know what we want to do, and the experience can be gradually improved, but most importantly, it must be the simplest product for the elderly to operate themselves." Han Libo said. At the end of December 2020, Didi set up the "Taxi for the Elderly" project team, spanning multiple departments, and Han Libo recalled that the discussion on the project within Didi was very intense at that time, and various ideas were overturned.
The introduction of policies has pushed products into the fast lane. But before that, Didi's exploration of serving the elderly has lasted for five or six years, and has launched products such as "care mode" and intimate payment, and has also tried the "respect for the elderly hotline", telephone car calling, setting up "common addresses" and other designs, these functions that people are now familiar with have taken shape at that time, but the thinking about the real needs of "elderly travel" is still shallow and simple.
"I was often asked by my parents to call for a ride, and they would give me a call and tell me where I was going to leave from and where I was going. Normally, I would call for a ride, but if I was busy with something else at that time, I might just hang up the phone. Now that I think about it, they were waiting for me in the cold wind." One member of the project team was very sad when he talked about this topic.
In many discussion collisions, the first version of the real sense of the "elderly taxi" product plan has gradually become vague: first choose the mini program, because many elderly people are more familiar with the WeChat ecology; the big font size is only the foundation, the operation steps should be as simple as possible, and the safety function should still be retained...
After the first version of the plan was determined, the technical team wrote the code in 11 days, and the "Didi Aged Edition" Mini Program was immediately launched. It's not mature, but Han says the real value of this version of the program for the project team is to gather feedback, familiarize yourself with the experience of the elderly, and learn from it.
Communication begins with friends and family. "You want to dig up more stuff and just ask, 'Is this feature useful?'" Basically no drama, you have to talk to him about daily life. For example, what was the most recent trip like? Which taxi made you most uncomfortable?" Since starting to do the elderly version of the travel service, Han Libo and the members of the group have always chased after the uncle and aunt in the community to ask questions, "We must first think of ourselves as old people."
As a large number of questions precipitated into information, Han Libo found that the familiar and habitual expression of young people may not be as intuitive and easy to understand for the elderly as imagined. For example, she once received a call from her mother-in-law asking what color her car was. On the page where the first version of the mini program waited to be picked up, the license plate was followed by a large color, but the mother-in-law did not realize that it was the color of the vehicle. She only felt that the key information that young product designers thought was ineffective in the elderly.
As the scope of the survey expanded, the project team found that "from south to north, all ages, no one is looking for a vehicle through the color on the page, which is determined that there is a problem with the design." After the revision, they directly used black characters on a white background, and they received positive feedback from users. Han Libo said that Didi actually did user research in multiple cities and iterated more than two dozen product versions from this learning process.
"Restraint" and "Trade-offs" hidden in products for the elderly
In true product design, it is not easy to achieve the "right fit" of all designs. "It's easy to make a delivery page, but it's very difficult to be sure that every setting above is appropriate." Han Libo said that in one product iteration after another, the project team began to understand the elderly as a group and the problems they really cared about.
"Don't say that the old version is to increase the size of the font size", Han Libo did not like this expression very much. It is true that the elderly's vision loss requires a larger font size display, but this also means that the content on the display page is reduced. In the usual design logic, let the user get more information on the product page, the user will feel more secure. "The most important thing in making products for the elderly is to exercise restraint while providing the necessary sense of security."
"Didi Old Man Taxi" abandoned the map display, choosing to broadcast the voice after a one-click ride and when the vehicle was about to arrive, and only the most recognizable car logo and color were retained on the car page. However, the Mini Program still retains the functions of emergency contacts, sharing trips, 110 alarms and so on. This is a precipitated countless interviews and research questionnaires, and the current page display scheme makes the most comfortable for the elderly. "Every morning after the taxi, you can leave your mobile phone at the door, and the mobile phone will sound and remind the driver when he arrives." The project team did two surveys, and the results showed that in the Beijing area, the net recommendation value of voice broadcasting reached more than 80%.
In addition to the simplification of display and function, designers have a lot to understand in the process of adapting to aging.
Han Libo had observed the habits of the elders when entering addresses, and she found that the elderly were accustomed to exporting what they wanted in its entirety. "Obviously, two words have been entered by hand, and the software has been associated, but the old man must insist on writing, once which word is written more, the final writing to the association is gone." 」 The AI technology we are accustomed to does not help the elderly. With this in mind, "Didi Aged Edition" added a design of setting 10 commonly used addresses. But they found that the elderly are not willing to take the initiative to set common addresses, which means that there are new problems to be solved.
Every mature product manager understands that the trade-offs of functionality are often weighed, there is no right or wrong, and the consideration of whether it is appropriate or not is often extremely delicate.
The project team has also tried to provide priority dispatches for the elderly. It's easy to implement from a product technology point of view, and it seems reasonable from a human point of view. But prioritizing orders isn't just a technical issue, it implies that the conundrum is fairness, for example, young people may also be in a hurry to go to work, rush to pick up their children, and how to measure the trade-offs.
Finally, after repeated investigations and discussions, Didi decided to provide priority dispatch for the elderly "medical scenario", they labeled the address of the general hospital, and when the order of the elderly over 60 years old starts and ends at the general hospital, it will give priority to calling the vehicle. This is the plan finalized by the team after extremely careful consideration, on the grounds that most of the elderly's medical treatment may be emergency, which not only truly facilitates the travel of the elderly, but also maximizes fairness.
With the maturity of product iteration, more flexible details are gradually described, for example, in addition to priority dispatch, the software will also provide some care services for elderly users with real-name authentication, such as sending a voice broadcast reminder to the driver master after the successful ride, informing the driver that the user of the order is the elderly, hoping that the driver master can give more patient waiting and help to move luggage.
Learn to say "words that the elderly can understand"
Considering the familiarity and intimacy of the elderly with the telephone call method, Didi has opened a telephone call hotline for the elderly throughout the country. When choosing the number, the project team found a circle of people to try to read in Northeast Chinese, Sichuan dialect, Shanghainese dialect, and Hokkien dialect, and finally decided on this easy to remember and good 4006881700.
Hui Hui was transferred from Didi Online to the elderly telephone call-hailing customer service team in June 21, and there are many internal transfer employees like him, but it is not simple to do a good job in customer service for the elderly.
Hong Jiarong and Han Libo, the head of operation of Didi Elderly Taxi, have participated in the workplace listening of Didi Elderly Taxi customer service for many times last year, and after listening to a phone call, there will be up to 11 people on the scene to score, mainly screening people with good service attitude and strong affinity.
They used to think that a customer service was not suitable for this position because she was "not patient enough" and "felt that she lacked the kind of love that came from the bottom of her heart" when the elderly could not understand it. They have come into contact with many elderly people at work and know too well the anxiety and uneasiness of the elderly when they call in.
The requirements for professional skills of elderly customer service are also not low, and Didi will train a set of words for the elderly internally. The first job requirement is to make the words in the mouth "unprofessional": so many common phrases of Didi's customer service have been abandoned, such as real-time orders, appointment sheets, and when serving the elderly, they must be replaced by "You call a car now" or "When do you call a car?" The place of departure and destination is replaced by "Where is it now?" "Where are you going?" These are all for the convenience of the elderly to understand.
The elderly repeat many times, words that are not easy to hear, customer service must be filtered out, real-time review and update every week. For example, the habit of passengers in different regions to describe the location is also different, and Hui Hui is very uncomfortable with the fact that Shanghainese will call the house number "Lane". There are also some elderly people who like to say that they are at the intersection of so-and-so road, or that the place they say is not found on the map. "If multiple elderly users in an area describe the address in a similar way, it will precipitate into a document and send it to more customer service, so that customer service can solve the problem of the elderly faster."
The elderly who use "telephone car" come from Tiannanhaibei, in response to the dialect problem, Didi has also specially opened a dialect customer service area, and there are currently Cantonese groups and Sichuan dialect groups, and more dialects will be opened in the future.
The customer service team of Didi Elderly Ride-hailing takes an average of about a minute to process an order. But one of the longest sessions that Hui hui processed lasted more than 20 minutes. At that time, the old man wanted to call a car to go to the hospital, but the distance was only one kilometer. For the driver, the distance is not high, and it is very uneconomical to run a trip, which requires Hui Hui to repeatedly communicate with the driver to explain the situation.
Hui Hui feels that in this process, customer service is like the "child" of the elderly, and she will imagine herself as helping her parents to call for a car.
Let more elderly people "go out and see the world"
Aunt Chen is 72 years old this year, and her wife is 74 years old, and she has always liked to travel with groups everywhere, and she can only trouble her children to drive and pick them up every time, but now it is different.
"Once I took a plane early in the morning, tried didi's phone to call a car, you can make an appointment in advance, but the first time you used it was particularly nervous, customer service told me the license plate number, model, car color, driver's last name, but the heart is still not solid." 」 Aunt Chen said that she called the driver an hour in advance, went out ten minutes early, it was raining heavily outside, the driver Master Sun was already waiting in the rain, and the driver master also helped her take her luggage. "I helped him with an umbrella, and he told me not to get wet." When I got into the car, I saw that his clothes were all wet, and my tears were rolling in my eyes. This has always been in my heart." Aunt Chen also often participates in community activities and gives speeches, and now she recommends it to the elderly around her everyone, "I said that we are also catching up with a high-tech at this age, and everyone laughs."
There are many old people like Aunt Chen who take a taxi "Amway Official", and "the old man helps the old man" is also becoming a unique scenery.
In May last year, under the guidance of the National Office on Aging and the China Association on Aging, Didi Charity Foundation also joined hands with the Chinese Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics and the China Foundation for the Development of the Aging Cause to jointly launch the "National Wisdom to Help the Elderly Public Welfare Action". Groups of volunteers have walked into the community and the homes of the elderly, teaching them hand in hand to register, take a taxi and pay fees with their smartphones, hoping to help at least 200,000 elderly people use smart technology.
Grandma Zhang, 92, is one of the volunteers, and after she called herself "90", she taught her old sisters through face-to-face group building and organizing activities after learning to use the Didi Old Age Edition." The biggest role of smart phones is to make everyone integrate into society, and it will also make the elderly more passionate about life." Grandma Zhang's wish is that by the time she is 100 years old, she can train 100 elderly people to "go out and see the world".
In June 2021, Didi Senior Edition released data showing more than 2.4 million orders per month, and phone riders hiding in a deeper digital divide and not even in the smartphone crowd. The matter of the elderly taking a taxi itself, for online ride-hailing companies and even the entire society, carries the most essential meaning of "service", so that technology can serve every corner and not leave any user behind.
With the development of the project, Han Libo has become more and more aware of the value of the cause of elderly travel. At the age of thirty or forty, when she found herself getting older, she was more and more touched by her father's faltering steps when he turned the platform in "Back Shadow". "When such an opportunity is in front of you to address what has been buried in the depths of your emotions, it is really rare." 」