Main Ethical Concerns
Our main ethical concerns in working on this project are health and safety, understanding users’ individual experiences, and user privacy.
Health and Safety
Our mission is to help seniors lead long healthy lives, so it is important to us that health and safety is addressed. We must ensure that our users are comfortable using our product without hurting themselves. To accomplish this, we have implemented two features in our app.
Appropriate and safe exercises
Every exercise that is displayed to our user on the activity page will be reviewed and chosen by physiotherapists and doctors. This way, each workout will be appropiate and safe for our users.
Call for help
There is always a risk of injury regardless of how safe the exercise is. Thus, we have implemented an easily accessible button on the home page for the user to reach emergency services. This way, if a user falls or hurts themselves, they can receive the medical attention that they need.
Understanding Users’ Individual Experiences
Every user is different. We must take this into account when designing an app that will be univerally used for seniors. Some users may face different physical ailments and will need workouts that cater to their health condition. To address this, we have prepared thre
Health accommodating exercises
We understand that physical ailments are a barrier to exercise to seniors, so we will recommend accommodating exercises for each user. Users will input any pre-existing conditions they have and the app's algorithm will recommend appropiate exercises. This way, users of all body types and abilities will have access to our app.
Body positivity
As this is a fitness centered app, we must be cautious about the specific language that we use. Rather than promoting controversial information such as "Get skinnier, use our app", we will focus our app on the users' own goals. We want users to feel fulfilled about themselves, so we will only help them achieve their self-determined goals. This way, we can avoid any body shaming or discouragment.
As well, the app's customizable avatar will help users feel more comfortable with looking at the homepage. They will not feel intimidated or disheartened when using an avatar that more closely resembles their language.
Accessible fitness
We are aware that not all users have access to large workout spaces or equipment. For this reason, the home-scanning feature will provide users with accessible workouts regardless of their economic or living status.
User Privacy
In the internet era, we often find ourselves giving up fundamental aspects of privacy. However, as we begin to understand the extents to which our information is being stored and sold, we must be weary of any privacy breaches. Especially since our app handles sensitive health information of our users, we have outlined three measures we are taking to ensure user privacy
Data security
As we are dealing with confidential health data of our users, we will take measures to make sure this remains private. First, every user must sign in with their unique username and password. This way, our users' data can only be accessed by themselves. As well, we will store every user's data in encypted servers to avoid potential data breaches.
Clear communication of data permissions
Before a user shares information with our app, we will first ask for consent. We will present our user with a clear, easy-to-read outline of what information we are gathering, and what we will do with their information. The user can choose to accept and share their information with us.
Never sell user information
To ensure our users feel comfortable and confident with the data storage of our app, we will never sell our user information. Their data will be kept strictly private and will not be handled by any third-party companies