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“The Terms and Conditions Came Back to Bite”:

Plain Language and Online Financial Content for Older Adults

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HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Universal Access and Inclusive Design (HCII 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12426))

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Abstract

With financial institutions increasingly transferring products and services online, the interaction of older adults with the web has received some attention. However, research on the accessibility and usability of the language of online financial content for older adults is lacking. Furthermore, evidence on the potential benefits of plain language is needed. We conducted a two-part study to fill these research gaps. First, we conducted a focus group with four older adults to find out: (i) if participants had concerns about the accessibility of online financial texts; and (ii) which types of texts might have benefited from plain language editing in their experience. We observed that older adults regarded Terms and Conditions as difficult to read. In a second stage, we examined the usability of Terms and Conditions through an experiment with 25 older adults. We tested the impact of plain language on different usability components, namely satisfaction ratings, reading comprehension, perceived comprehensibility, and reading behaviour for Terms and Conditions related to direct debits provided by a bank and an insurance company. We found no benefits of plain language on the usability components under investigation. However, despite a general tendency to skim through or read only parts of Terms and Conditions, we also observed that reading behaviour was more varied—including repeated readings, section skipping, and reading abandonment—with texts that had not undergone plain language editing. Furthermore, aspects other than language (such as visual components) were valued by older adults. Conclusions and implications are outlined.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been funded by Science Foundation Ireland through the SFI Research Centres Programme and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund through Grant n. 13/RC/2106.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland

    Alessandra Rossetti, Patrick Cadwell & Sharon O’Brien

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  1. Alessandra Rossetti
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  2. Patrick Cadwell
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  3. Sharon O’Brien
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Correspondence to Alessandra Rossetti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Crete and Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Greece

    Constantine Stephanidis

  2. Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Greece

    Margherita Antona

  3. Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Qin Gao

  4. Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Jia Zhou

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Rossetti, A., Cadwell, P., O’Brien, S. (2020). “The Terms and Conditions Came Back to Bite”:. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds) HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Universal Access and Inclusive Design. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12426. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60149-2_53

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60149-2_53

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