• Do the app's default settings protect users' Data & Privacy?
• Does the app enable users to express preferences and make informed decisions clearly?
• Are privacy notices clear and easy to understand?

• Is the app safe and effective? Does the content draw on high-quality clinical guidelines or other respected sources?
• Has the app been tested with older adults to show its effectiveness?
• Has the app been developed by qualified/appropriate individuals?
• Are any risks associated with the app clearly communicated?

• Is the app totally free?
• Does the developer clearly honestly communicate charges and cancellation methods to the end user?
• Are users made aware of changes to pricing and charges?

In addition, the following is assessed but not scored:

• Does the app cater for vision or sight impairments?
• What features does the app have to assist users (i.e. Font Size changes, Text-to-speech, Screen Readers)
• Does the app follow any design/accessibility standards

The AARP Assessment is designed to ensure a thorough evaluation of the app's features and processes to gain a comprehensive understanding of the app’s strengths and areas for improvement in terms of age-friendliness.

ORCHA assessors are recruited and trained by ORCHA from a wide array of backgrounds and roles. They are not experts in any particular field of App assessment but rapidly become experts in reviewing Apps to answer the questions posed by our Assessment Development Team who are all experts in relevant areas such as clinical, technical, regulation, user experience and design.

Our team are experts in translating best practice guidelines, frameworks and regulations into a set of objective questions. They set out very clearly what evidence the Assessors need to find to answer a question affirmatively, and they also determine the consequences of the answer to each question in terms of positive points being awarded, which drives our scoring process. This scoring process aims to deliver an objective and unbiased evaluation of all Apps so they are treated fairly irrespective of their current popularity or financial position.

Our Assessors are guided through each assessment through our online review tool, and this ensures that all the relevant questions are investigated. Where Assessors encounter scenarios that the Assessor Development Team haven’t specified, the Assessors refer these back to the relevant member of the Assessor Development Team for guidance.

An ORCHA assessment is not the same as a full user test of an App, and it doesn’t test all the claims an App Developer might make about what the App can or might do.

Our Assessments aim to rapidly assess an Apps overall compliance level with regulation, standards and best practice, to provide a proxy view of whether it is something to engage with or not. High levels of compliance do tend to indicate a higher level of quality in the product, and vice versa.

ORCHA works with numerous governments and health and social care organizations around the world, ORCHA has completed over 17,000 assessments on 7,000 apps.

ORCHA is a commercial organisation providing a variety of services and products to different organisations. While ORCHA is paid to design, develop and deliver our resources as well as carry out assessments, we are not paid to highlight apps in the library. are compensated primarily by those who seek access to the app library, not by the app developers. Developers can pay a nominal amount to see their review in advance of publication.

They can also pay a small fee to be reviewed earlier than our schedule. But this does not influence the assessment, as the approach is documented and is entirely objective with no room for subjectivity.

ORCHA does not receive any kind of fee for app downloads, page views or click-throughs.

In partnership with ORCHA, AARP has developed a transparent and easily understood assessment methodology that measures the extent to which an app has been designed to account for the needs of older adults and is assessed as suitable to be surfaced in this Library.

Before going through the AARP Assessment apps must go through a screening test which aligns with both ORCHA and AARP’s goal to uphold legal and ethical standards in the apps featured on the platform. This screening test, tailored to legal compliance provides a prerequisite process, addressing ORCHA and AARP’s specific concerns about legality and safety, and ensuring only compliant apps proceed to the next assessment stage. The inclusion of this screening test clearly delineates the non-negotiable criteria that apps must meet before proceeding to the AARP Age-Friendly Assessment.

Developers are better informed about the essential legal and safety criteria they need to meet, even before the age-friendly assessment. This clarity guides developers in ensuring their apps comply with crucial legal standards from the onset. Not only that, but by ensuring legal compliance from the outset, our interactions with developers can be more streamlined, helping them improve and enhance the age-friendliness of their products.

The AARP library is different to the Google Play Store and Apple App store. The AARP library is specifically designed to help older adults find and select technologies in areas that are interesting to them and promote their wellbeing. Only those apps that have been successful in the AARP assessment will be shown in the library.