We’re back to blogging about seniors, e-mail, and accessible technology in general!

We’ve been gone a while from this blog, but we’ve been hard at work. There should be many more updates on PawPawMail, and maybe even some time to share them, in the coming weeks.

To keep it simple, we’ve been listening to a lot of requests for new features. We’re rolling them out very slowly to make sure that we don’t sacrifice simplicity in any way. We’ve been adding languages, streamlining workflow a bit, and making the setup process even easier.

We’ve also been getting a lot of requests for more general information about computer configuration for seniors. So we’ve gotten together most of the advice we have and created a few documents, which we’ll be releasing soon. Some are PawPawMail guides — quick references for using our e-mail service for seniors, both for the seniors themselves and for the managers. But our next post will talk about the guide we created to help caregivers of any sort set up the computer hardware and software to make the whole system easier to use for seniors (more “accessible”), regardless of whether they’re using our system.

So ask us your questions about seniors, computers, accessibility, and the internet, and give us your advice. We’ll be sure to aggregate it all in what we hope will be some useful and ever-growing reference materials.

PawPawMail in the New York Times!!!

We’re featured in a great new article, just out today, in the New York Times’ “New Old Age” section, about e-mail for seniors:

What distinguishes PawPawMail from other programs is that it is a managed system aimed at caregivers as well as seniors. “PawPawMail is built entirely around the idea of two users,” Mr. Hughes said in a recent e-mail message. “The senior user who actually uses the e-mail account, and the caretaker/manager who helps set the senior up, gets his or her address book going, and screens mail from unknown sources to prevent contact from all the ridiculous number of scams that are directed at seniors.”

It goes on to talk about seniors’ e-mail experiences, generally, and the ability to preserve memories from older parents (and grandparents) when they’ve been recorded electronically.  Check it out!

PawPawMail — The Easiest Email for Seniors

Welcome to PawPawMail — Simple Email for Seniors. We’ve created what we think is the easiest possible way for Senior Citizens to access e-mail.

Without needing to know e-mail addresses, menus, links, or even how to click the back button on a browser, your elderly relative — or anyone new to computers — can use simple e-mail and view photos added by family members and friends. It’s a system managed by you (a younger relative, perhaps a remote caregiver), which allows the system to remain even simpler for the Senior user.

It’s all web-based, so there’s nothing to install, and you can be going in minutes. All the user needs is a computer with internet access — we’ll even show you how to set it up so that it starts directly into PawPawMail, and they never have to do anything but use the simplest e-mail available.

Thanks! Please don’t hesitate to check out the PawPawMail website: Easy Email for Seniors, Elderly Parents, learn how we got started, and see just how easy it is to use. We’re happy to answer any questions you have, and we always appreciate feedback about how to make PawPawMail even easier for the user and even more convenient for the caregiver. We’ll keep writing here about our experiences developing PawPawMail further.