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This is essentially the idea that we've been applying to seed funding firms with. The market for products for the elderly is huge, and software firms largely do
by jacoblyles 18y ago
This is essentially the idea that we've been applying to seed funding firms with. The market for products for the elderly is huge, and software firms largely don't care about it. So, I think it is a great idea (haven't looked at your implementation yet).
I'll share with you one insight we had from our brainstorming sessions: we thought it would be a good idea to make the product a desktop email client that runs on startup rather than a web page (tagline: "Outlook for the elderly. Except it doesn't suck like Outlook."). I just remember how difficult it was for my father to learn how to find the browser, open the browser, go to gmail, remember his password, etc. And yet for many users, email is 90%+ of what they use their computer for. There's no reason it should be complicated (or use small fonts!).
However, making a website probably entails less up-front investment and allows you to test the market. It's a great idea, and I wish more people would focus on this underserved market.
- derwiki 18y agoI think making it a desktop client is a great idea. My father is still inherently a little less trusting of "the internet" and web browsers, but he's fine with using an application for email. It sounds sort of silly.. but if that's what it takes to crack the elderly market, it's worth looking into. Great idea for a product!
- rjurney 18y agoI think an appliance is the ideal end-product. Gift gramps email in a box, a very limited, PawPaw specific notebook. All it does is email and photos.
- jacoblyles 18y agoPicwing is something like this.
- RKlophaus 18y agoI would package this as a "desktop app" that is really just a thin shell around WebKit or System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser. Grandpa thinks it's a desktop app and has a single icon to click on, but from a development and maintenance perspective you get all the benefits of the web.
- jrockway 18y agoYou forgot xulrunner. Firefox is just a thin shell around xulrunner, after all.
- anthonyrubin 18y agoOne of these projects might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser#Software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser#Software