Muddling through Digital Payment Interfaces : The Case of Visually Impaired and Elderly Population

Abstract

New business models and public utility services that use digital payment interfaces are undoubtedly providing scalable convenience, but they pose a significant burden on the visually impaired and elderly population. Although small, this demography is ostracised from the mainstream negotiations for want of cognitive ability to navigate over the digital payment interfaces. Visual impairment and old age are closely related, and the crux of the paper is that the latter receives a solution if the former is addressed with conviction, as many of their cognition-related concerns are the same. One must read the lapses in digital interfaces in ensuring equity in access for the exceptional and their rights to live with reasonable dignity along with the social construct of digital disability. The present paper illustrates the real-time glitches for the exceptions in using the interface and thus highlights the need for a human-centric user interface to make it sustainable and inclusive.