The global aging trend compels older adults to navigate the evolving digital landscape, presenting a substantial challenge in mastering smartphone applications. While Augmented Reality (AR) holds promise for enhancing learning and user experience, its role in aiding older adults' smartphone app exploration remains insufficiently explored. Therefore, we conducted a two-phase study: (1) a workshop with 18 older adults to identify app exploration challenges and potential AR interventions, and (2) tech-probe participatory design sessions with 15 participants to co-create AR support tools. Our research highlights AR's effectiveness in reducing physical and cognitive strain among older adults during app exploration, especially during multi-app usage and the trial-and-error learning process. We also examined their interactional experiences with AR, yielding design considerations on tailoring AR tools for smartphone app exploration. Ultimately, our study unveils the prospective landscape of AR in supporting the older demographic, both presently and in future scenarios.

翻译：全球老龄化趋势迫使老年人在不断演变的数字环境中前行，掌握智能手机应用程序成为一项重大挑战。尽管增强现实（AR）有望增强学习与用户体验，但其在帮助老年人探索智能手机应用方面的作用仍未被充分探索。为此，我们开展了一项两阶段研究：（1）与18名老年人举办工作坊，以识别应用探索中的挑战及潜在的AR干预措施；（2）与15名参与者进行技术探针参与式设计会议，共同设计AR支持工具。我们的研究凸显了AR在减少老年人在应用探索过程中身体与认知负荷方面的有效性，尤其是在多应用使用和试错学习过程中。我们还考察了他们与AR的交互体验，并提出针对智能手机应用探索的AR工具设计考量。最终，我们的研究揭示了AR在当下及未来场景中支持老年群体的潜在前景。