Mobile Encountered Problems

Problems encountered by disabled and elderly people using mobile telephones
Blind and Partially Sighted

The decreasing size of handsets has brought advantages to many users but at the expense of small keypads, limited sidetone, and small visual displays that people with visual disabilities find inaccessible.

People with visual impairments often cannot locate or identify controls or input slots or operate controls that require sight.

Some people are unable to distinguish between certain colour combinations used on mobile telephone screens and keypads.
Photograph of a man with a hearing aid holding a telephone receiver
Hearing impaired

Users of hearing aids experience disturbances due to electromagnetic interference (EMI) from digital mobile phones. The rapid pulsation of radio signals from digital mobile telephones can give rise to a buzzing, humming, squealing or squelch inside the hearing aid.

Hearing impaired users cannot locate or identify controls that require hearing (e.g. a voice-based interactive mobile telephone that can be controlled only by listening to menu items and then pressing buttons).
Physically impaired

With the advent of smaller mobile telephones, people who have physical impairments may find it hard to hold and activate the buttons on a phone.

For people who are speech impaired, communicating using a mobile telephone in general and speaking clearly to activate functions by voice commands is not always possible.
Cognitively impaired

People with cognitive or learning impairments may experience problems with the operating systems of complicated mobile telephones.
Elderly lady using a mobile telephone
Elderly

Elderly people can often experience a range of difficulties with mobile telephones, such as those stated above: from the screen being too small to see; incompatibility with a hearing aid and too many complicated specialised functions.