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Touch-Screens and Elderly users: A Perfect Match?

Authors:
Alma Leora Culén
Tone Bratteteig

Keywords: Touch Interfaces; Design Method; Elderly Users; Multimodal Interactions

Abstract:
This paper discusses some challenges in use of touch–based screens by elderly adults. We are focusing primarily on touch-based interactions with personal artifacts such as smart phones and tablets or touch-screens embedded in the home environment. We have conducted several small studies as a prequel to a larger study of “smart home” package designed and employed in “care residences” for elderly. We report here on findings from these studies and extend them into more general discussion on the use of touch interfaces by elderly. We discuss challenges related to diversity of elderly as a user group, progressive changes due to aging and their effects on the use of touch-screens. How to use technology to support mastering of daily life tasks and at the same time easy to use, touch-based solutions that support mastery (usually requiring some level of skills)? How to select other modes of interaction when the touch is not enough? Elderly people constitute a challenging and vulnerable user group that we want to strengthen and empower in the spirit of participatory design.

Pages: 460 to 465

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013

Publication date: February 24, 2013

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4138

ISBN: 978-1-61208-250-9

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from February 24, 2013 to March 1, 2013