Interface Complexity and Elderly Users: Revisited

The ever-increasing functionality of today’s software applications comes in tandem with added complexity, which may hinder elderly citizens’ full participation in the digital world. Building upon Van Slyke et al’s (2004) extension to TAM, the authors explicate the relationships between software functionality/complexity and users’ perceived usefulness and ease-of-use of software. The influence of age difference on these relationships is also examined

Increased Content Accessibility For Wikis And Blogs

This paper aims to introduce a useful approach on the combined use of template based publishing tools (i.e. for blogs and wikis) and content personalization services. The approach considers that the original developers of web content have limited awareness on accessibility issues, and they are facilitated and guided by the editing interface. The publishing mechanism is responsible for storing web content in a flexible representation, where structured content is separated from the formatting information. Intermediate brokering services (i.e aggregators, mediators or simply the portal software) produce multiple versions of the same content in order to increase content accessibility. Finally, end-users are able to set their preferences on how the content will be presented and get a homogeneous representation of the community content. The different versions may comprise multiple languages, audio and text representations etc and be based on a single version of the original content. The structured nature of content produced by template based tools allows intermediate services to intervene and reproduce the original content in various formats and client tools to filter and present information according to user needs and capabilities. The paper presents the focal points of the suggested approach, details on the underlying architecture and presents the required supporting infrastructure

An Investigation of Information Sought by Caregivers of Alzheimer’s Patients on Online Peer-Support Groups

Alzheimer’s caregivers seek social support through online communities to deal with their issues. The research team conducted a content analysis of ALZConnected.org to investigate the characteristics of information searched by caregivers and responses received. Two-hundred fifty posts and related responses were randomly selected and analyzed using a classification tool derived from the analysis of 500 posts and related responses spanning a yearlong period. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIW C) generated an average tone rating of 25.94 for the posts and 52.69 for the responses. The findings highlighted the caregiver’s need for emotional support (59.6%), and confusion about Alzheimer’s symptoms (12%). Most responses suggested informational resources (40.16%) and advised to seek professional assistance (21.31%). One of the key needs identified to inform future design of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver Forum was a design sensitive to the capabilities of its elder user audience

“Liisa, Liisa, the Machine Says I Have Performed an Illegal Action. Should I Tell the Police..?” A Survey and Observations of Inexperienced Elderly Internet Users

The number of older people is growing rapidly in all the industrialized countries. This paper seeks understanding of how older people who are inexperienced Internet users really make use of the Internet. This is tackled through a survey and observations on 42 Internet courses with 328 participants. Quite surprisingly, the most common use was found to be e-banking transactions rather than Web browsing or e-mailing. In general, elderly users focused on the benefit to be reaped from the Internet. Those 65 years or over had more trouble with the font sizes on Web sites than those aged 55-64 years, and the latter found the Internet even more valuable for carrying out transactions. Interestingly, no other statistically significant differences were found over the two groups

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

Tipología de compradores online mayores de 55 años.

La edad se considera una de las variables determinantes del riesgo de exclusión social de la población, especialmente con relación al uso de las nuevas tecnologías en general y de Internet en particular. Esto ha incidido en una creciente preocupación por el estudio del colectivo de mayores de 55 años 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 algo 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 grupo heterogéneo, con distintas características y condiciones de uso de Internet y proponemos un modelo de clases latentes que nos permite establecer tres perfiles de mayores internautas en función de la utilización de un servicio avanzado de Internet, la compra online.Age is considered one of the variables determining the risk of social exclusion of population, especially regarding the use of new technologies in general and the Internet in particular. This fact has provoked a growing concern for studying the collective of elder people and their peculiarities in regard to access, use and exploitation of ICT. However, these efforts have focused mainly on the analysis of the elder group as a homogeneous entity, which has led them to establish their behavioral profiles compared with other age groups. In this research we start from the consideration of this collective as a heterogeneous group with different characteristics and conditions of use of the Internet. And we propose a latent class model that allows us to establish three major Internet profiles based on the use of advanced Internet services such as online purchasing