Making computers easier for older adults to use: area cursors and sticky icons
Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) - Special issue on human-computer interaction with mobile systems
Slipping and drifting: using older users to uncover pen-based target acquisition difficulties
Proceedings of the 9th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
Interaction techniques for older adults using touchscreen devices: a literature review
Proceedings of the 25ième conférence francophone on l'Interaction Homme-Machine
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The effect of the decline in cognitive, perceptive, and motor abilities on older adults' performance with input devices has been well documented in several experiments. None of these experiments, however, have provided information on the challenges faced by older adults when using pens to interact with handheld computers. To address this need, we conducted a study to learn about the performance of older adults in simple pen-based tasks with handheld computers. The study compared the performance of twenty 18-22 year olds, twenty 50-64 year olds, and twenty 65-84 year olds. We found that for the most part, older adults were able to complete tasks accurately. An exception occurred with the low accuracy rates achieved by 65-84 year old participants when tapping on targets of the same size as the standard radio buttons, checkboxes, and icons on the PocketPC. An alternative selection technique we refer to as "touch" enabled 65-84 year olds to select targets more accurately. This technique did not negatively affect the performance of the other participants. If tapping to select, making standard-sized targets 50 percent larger provided 65-84 year olds with similar advantages to switching to "touch" interactions. The results suggest that "touch" interactions need to be further explored to understand whether they will work in more realistic situations.