Table 3.

Qualitative thematic analysis and corresponding participant quotes

Theme	Subtheme	Quote
Positive experiences	Programme flexibility Friendly facilitators Accountability	‘I liked the [StandingTall] exercises that you could just join in when it suited and they were pretty much self-explanatory. As long as I had my chair nearby and the phone, everything was set to go.’—Female, aged 71 ‘I was the one that was making comments on it rather than [Participant 7, husband]. I sort of tend to get on Facebook a bit more than [husband, Participant 7] and so I was more into the social media.’—Female, aged 66 ‘We didn’t really need to do that because we could, because we’re, [Participant 4, wife] and I were bouncing off each other. Some of the time to try and motivate ourselves.’—Male, aged 69 ‘Just that I kept thinking I can’t keep in touch with so many people that’s the other thing I’ve got about five or six really good friends and that’s what I do cause beyond that it just gets too much.’—Female, aged 60 ‘Yeah so you felt motivated enough just from the app?’—Interviewer *[Female, aged 60] nods* ‘[The facilitator] was very good actually. I really enjoyed my interaction with her. Easy to talk to and doesn’t make me sort of feel too guilty.’—Female, aged 66 ‘Actually having you know [the facilitator] overseeing it. That was motivating because there was the contact point or somebody who’s contacting me to follow up or to see what I was doing so that’s always motivating.’—Female, aged 65 ‘I was accountable to someone and myself, but it was it was just enough to really make a difference in my thinking.’—Female, aged 60
Perceived benefits	Physical benefits Mental health benefits Programme increased physical activity and encouraged healthy habits outside of the programme	‘I was in quite a bit of physical pain, because I’d been ill and getting back to exercise it was actually very well timed and the StandingTall was kind of the only exercise I was doing as well as walking to work and back from the car park, but it really got me back into being a bit balanced and I was doing it faithfully.’—Female, aged 63 ‘I was going well. Yeah, [his balance] has improved quite a bit.’—Male, aged 63 ‘It gave me something to focus on because of the challenging family things that’s been going on and it just gives you a different focus. Also, I like the fact that I was improving with standing on one leg.’—Female, aged 68 ‘I do think I’m happier. Cause I was a bit glum there for a while, probably prior to starting it.’—Female, aged 66 ‘I was more aware of trying to be more physically active and I actually started wearing my Fitbit again. I think it actually did inspire me to get my Fitbit up and running again. I’ve actually got it on today. I went for a walk.’—Female, aged 66 ‘I’m doing it on my daughter’s Wii now. It’s more than 15 minutes now it’s got up to half an hour. Every second day.’—Female, aged 60
Competing life stressors affected programme engagement	Health problems Personal schedule	‘The mental change is due to two things right. Initially with my cancer because you do worry about a lot and the second thing is the tablet itself. The thing is with the tablet. They say the side effect of it is, you feel sort of depressed or a little bit anxious so you have to watch out for all those things.’—Male, aged 63 ‘We haven’t done it for the last two or three weeks because we’ve been away for a while and then things are just starting to get busy come up to Christmas, of course, but, but we will get back to it.’—Male, aged 69
Dislikes or areas for programme improvement	Accountability More challenging and varied exercise sought Increased social connection Continued support Alternative digital platform	‘I think if I’d have been reminded a little bit more because I get busy with other things and if I was prompted a bit more, I think I would have been more diligent.’—Female, aged 66 ‘I found that the exercises were starting off so slow that I sort of felt it didn’t apply to me because I was able to do a lot of physical activity.’—Female, aged 66 ‘Well for me I don’t think it sort of was targeting enough on the balance for me that was just my one, but you?’ *gestures to husband—Female, aged 66 ‘Like a variety, a greater variety or more frequent exercise, exercise set. Like, just add to, just to vary it up a bit.’—Male, aged 66 ‘If you cross them in some way, so that people from the different groups might be able to share any commonality or any differences or anything. A bigger group rather than having two separate groups.’—Female, aged 63 ‘If there was contact or top up information every three months or six months just to see if anything’s changed. Say if in any of your findings you you see that you know there’s things that we could change behaviour or something . . . Yes and can let you know if there’s anything that could change because I think while I understand it’s a study and the purpose of the study is you know having started it and I don’t want to just stop and say oh well that’s done and in the past. You want to keep going but if there’s any changes or developments or things that you find that’ll be useful.’—Female, aged 65 ‘We haven’t done it for probably months now, and it’s because the programme’s finished. I’m not being held accountable.’—Female, aged 68 ‘I think there might be partly, not an age thing, but a generational thing, so most people most people doing this, are probably, are less Facebook and social media orientated compared to young, like the next younger generation.’—Male, aged 69 ‘I must say I didn’t really interact with the Facebook group.’—Female, aged 71 ‘Is that because it was online and you prefer, social interaction face to face sort of interaction?’—Interviewer ‘No, not really. I’ve been in a number of Facebook groups and it was just another one and yeah I just didn’t feel the need to get one in there.’—Female, aged 71