One model, says an article in The Mature Market, the Vitaphone 1100, is an “elderly technophobe’s dream,” fitted with only a red, green and yellow button, to connect the user quickly to just a small handful of important numbers.

Red goes straight to a medical center with doctors on-hand to deliver an instant diagnosis or call for an ambulance. The green and yellow buttons are programmable-–each can hold exactly one phone number.

Blatantly missing from the new, senior-centered phones are high-tech features that clog up today’s run-of-the-mill cell phones, like text messaging or picture-sending capabilities. Instead, says the publication, European phones targeting older users have features that will prove more beneficial and desirable to a senior audience including GPS navigation systems, instant cardiograms, and bigger buttons that are easy to see and push, even for the user with failing eyesight or limited mobility.

Benjamin Homberg of Vitaphone notes that features that appeal to younger cell phone users have been the focus of most cell phones in the past; senior phone users, however, could benefit from ergonomics that fit them a little better, both in usability and in the available features. "Everyone has their own needs, but in this case older people are less interested in sending text messages but more interested in knowing that they can contact relatives or a doctor," said Homberg.

Source: The Mature Market