HelpCall: Designing Informal Technology Assistance for Older Adults via Videoconferencing

Older adults commonly rely on younger family members for remote tech support, but the current general-purpose video-conferencing platforms fall short of effectively catering to their needs. We introduce the design concept and prototypes for HelpCall, an augmentation of these platforms that provides aids for learning computer tasks, including a step-by-step visual guide automatically generated from synchronous human instruction. Through observations and interviews with older adults (N=14), we assessed the potential of the HelpCall concept and compared its two design candidates: Tooltip with numbered location markers and List of written steps. All participants acknowledged HelpCall’s potential to improve the comfort and efficiency of synchronous tech support. Tooltip emerged as more promising and could be enhanced by incorporating the well-received features from List. Our findings provide clear directions for advancing HelpCall design and new insights into designing synchronous software help for older adults, taking a step towards universal accessibility of digital technology.