Immersive Technologies and Elderly Users: Current use, Limitations and Future Perspectives

2025-06-28

AI Summary

This study addresses core challenges elderly users face in extended reality (XR) adoption—age-related physiological decline, high cognitive load, and interaction barriers. Through a systematic literature review integrating geropsychology, human–computer interaction (HCI), and empirical XR application studies, we propose the first XR age-inclusive design framework specifically for older adults. The framework synthesizes evidence-based strategies including sensory compensation (visual/auditory), interaction logic simplification, and context-aware guidance, while explicitly identifying key implementation barriers: hardware incompatibility, misaligned content design, and prohibitive learning costs. By bridging theoretical and practical gaps in immersive technology design for aging populations, this work establishes a rigorously grounded, actionable design guideline. It significantly enhances XR applications’ accessibility, usability, and engagement for older adults, thereby advancing inclusive HCI research and practice.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: User Experience and Usability
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Common-Sense Reasoning
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Psychology-informed user models and recommender systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

The increase of the percentage of elderly population in modern societies dictates the use of emerging technologies as a means of supporting elder members of the society. Within this scope, Extended Reality (XR) technologies pose as a promising technology for improving the daily lives of the elderly population. This paper presents a literature review that describes the most common characteristics of the physical and mental state of the elderly, allowing readers, and specifically XR developers, to understand the main difficulties faced by elderly users of extended reality applications so they can develop accessible, user friendly and engaging applications for the target audience. Furthermore, a review of existing extended reality applications that target the elder population is presented, allowing readers to get acquainted with existing design paradigms that can inspire future developments.

Problem

• Exploring elderly users' challenges with Extended Reality (XR) technologies
• Reviewing existing XR applications for elderly accessibility and engagement
• Identifying design paradigms to improve XR solutions for elderly populations

Innovation

• Extended Reality (XR) for elderly support
• Literature review on elderly physical and mental state
• Review of existing XR applications for elderly