Constructing an Inclusive Web Design Checklist for Health-Related Sites for Older Adults with Complex Chronic Disease

Health-related sites are not optimally usable by older adults(aged 50 and over) who live with complex chronic disease (CCD) because most sites do not deliver online information with these users in mind. While the current literature explains how to design Web sites for older adults, it lacks guidance in how to design Web sites for older adults with CCD that have diverse abilities. My research examined the Web design features that provide this user population a better Web experience. This research paper started with the synthesis of current checklists that target older adult Web users and findings from an empirical study of the online experiences of older adults living with CCD. The results led to the construction of a checklist of inclusive Web design features that support designers in creating more usable and accessible health-related sites. The final Inclusive Web Design Checklist is comprised of 16 categories and 55 criteria

Adaptación de la usabilidad del entorno de formación TELMA a las necesidades de los cirujanos expertos

Uno de los principales inconvenientes manifestados por los cirujanos a la hora de llevar a cabo su formación continuada es la elevada carga asistencial que les limita la posibilidad de asistir a cursos y estancias presenciales. Por tanto, los cirujanos necesitan otros métodos formativos distintos a la formación in situ y para ello son de gran utilidad las tecnologías web, como es el caso de la plataforma de e-Learning TELMA, que ofrezcan contenidos didácticos adaptados a cada usuario para que puedan complementar su formación con contenidos multimedia online. Estudios previos de validación de TELMA detectaron diferentes problemas respecto a su diseño y usabilidad, propiciando mayores dificultades de accesibilidad para los cirujanos expertos en relación a los cirujanos noveles. Para corregirlos, en este trabajo se han analizado las deficiencias encontradas y se han propuesto una serie de medidas fundamentadas en un conjunto de directivas de diseño web que se deberían adoptar en futuras versiones de la plataforma TELMA para tratar de solventar estas desigualdades, ofreciendo a todos los usuarios tanto expertos como noveles, las mismas facilidades de accesibilidad

Involving older adults in the technology design process: : a case study on mobility and wellbeing in the built environment

Older adults benefit from unstructured, lifestyle-based activity that can be carried out in people’s houses, neighbourhoods, and the built environment. Technological solutions may support physical activity and encourage wellbeing. To ensure such technology is suitable for, and usable by, older adults, it is crucial they are involved in all stages of design. Participatory design methodologies facilitate collaboration and engagement with potential users. We examine the suitability of participatory design for collaborating and engaging with older adults. Participatory design workshops were conducted with 33 older adults in the UK with the aim of designing mobile applications to support and promote physical activity and wellbeing in the built environment. As well as summarising the outcome of these workshops, the paper outlines several methodological issues relating to the suitability of participatory design for involving older adults in the technology design proces

Health websites visual structure: the necessity of developing a comprehensive design guideline

Using health-related websites and their information increasingly develops and some concerns on its quality arise as well. Different factors affect the quality of health websites which visual structure is one of the most important factors. The aim of the current study is to explain the role of health websites` visual structure in users’ views on their quality and reliability as well as its role in obtaining health information by users. Furthermore, the need for a comprehensive guideline for designing such websites is discussed. The review showed that health website’s appearance has an important role in users view on its credibility. Furthermore, it was revealed that there is no comprehensive national or international guideline to health websites design. Considering the importance of visual structure of health websites, there is an emergent need to develop a national guideline to obviate the problems of non-consistent, poor or personalized design of health websites. 

Text or image? Investigating the effects of instruction type on mid-air gesture making with novice older adults

Unlike traditional interaction methods where the same command (e.g. mouse click) is used for different purposes, mid-air gesture interaction often makes use of different gesture commands for different functions, but first novice users need to learn these commands in order to interact with the system successfully. We describe an empirical study with 25 novice older adults that investigated the effectiveness of 3 “on screen” instruction types for demonstrating how to make mid-air gesture commands. We compared three interface design choices for providing instructions: descriptive (text-based), pictorial (static), and pictorial (animated). Results showed a significant advantage of pictorial instructions (static and animated) over text-based instructions for guiding novice older adults in making mid-air gestures with regards to accuracy, completion time and user preference. Pictorial (animated) was the instruction type leading to the fastest gesture making with 100% accuracy and may be the most suitable choice to support age-friendly gesture learning

Las mujeres de la 3ª edad ante la compra online

La tercera edad y el género femenino se consideran variables determinantes del riesgo de exclusión social de la población en lo relativo al uso de las nuevas tecnologías. Esto ha incidido en una creciente preocupación por el estudio del colectivo de las mujeres de la tercera edad y sus peculiaridades en lo relativo al acceso, uso y aprovechamiento de las TIC. Sin embargo, los esfuerzos se han centrado, mayoritariamente, en el análisis del grupo de mayores como un ente homogéneo, lo que ha llevado a establecer sus perfiles de comportamiento en comparación con el de otros grupos de edad. En esta investigación partimos de la consideración del colectivo como un grupo heterogéneo, con distintas características y condiciones de uso de Internet y proponemos un modelo de clases latentes que nos permite establecer dos perfiles de mujeres mayores internautas, en función de la compra online

La elección de servicios turísticos online por los usuarios mayores de 55 años. Segmentación mediante clases latentes.

El objetivo de este trabajo es determinar y analizar las preferencias de los usuarios mayores de 55 años acerca de las características relevantes en su elección entre diferentes e-retailers que ofrecen servicios turísticos. La revisión de la literatura sobre comercio electrónico sugiere la evaluación de atributos tangibles e intangibles en la elección del sitio web y la diferente importancia atribuida. Para alcanzar los objetivos empleamos el Análisis Conjunto como modelo de preferencia multiatributo; con él analizamos las preferencias complejas dependientes de más de un factor o atributo -paso previo a la determinación de segmentos basados en clases latentes (LC clusters). Los resultados obtenidos nos permiten identificar dos grupos de usuarios online entre los mayores de 55 que muestran diferente sensibilidad al precio

Interface design guidelines of nutritional information application for the elderly

The aim of this study is to evaluate the interface design of nutrition information application for elderly people. Obtaining the proper nutritional information is an important aspect for elderly healthcare. Most information on healthcare can be found from the Internet. However, many elderly people face problems when using the Internet due to their inability to adapt to common platforms of interface design. Due to deterioration in physiological functions, elderly users have different requirements from adult users. A high fidelity prototype on nutrition was developed, taking into consideration the evaluation results from the initial need assessment focus group study. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 30 respondents aged between 60 and 79 years old. The result reveals that most of the respondents gave a positive feedback to the three main features of interface design, which are simplicity (96%), directness (90%) and consistency (100%). Based on this outcome, it can be concluded that the interface design is well accepted by the elderly respondents

Age, Technology Usage, and Cognitive Characteristics in Relation to Perceived Disorientation and Reported Website Ease of Use

Comparative studies including older and younger adults are becoming more common in HCI, generally used to compare how these two different age groups will approach a task. However, it is unclear whether user 'age' is the underlying factor that differentiates between these two groups. To address this problem, an examination into the relationship between users' age, previous technology experience, and cognitive characteristics is conducted. Measures of perceived disorientation and reported ease of use are used to understand links that exist between these user characteristics and their effect on browsing experience. This is achieved through a lab-based information retrieval task, where participants visited a selection of websites in order to find answers to a series of questions and then self reported their feelings of perceived disorientation and website ease of use through a Likert-scored questionnaire. The presented research found that age accounts for as little as 1% of user browsing experience when performing information retrieval tasks. Further, it showed that cognitive ability and previous technology experience significantly affected perceived disorientation in these searches. These results argue for the inclusion of metrics regarding cognitive ability and previous technology experience when analyzing user satisfaction and performance in Internet based-studies