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An ethnographical study of the accessibility barriers in the everyday interactions of older people with the web

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Abstract

Older people experience many barriers when they access to the web. However, little is known about which barriers limit more (or less) their daily interactions. This paper presents some findings based on an ethnographical study of the everyday interactions of nearly 400 older people with the web over 3 years. Difficulties remembering steps, understanding terms and using the mouse are more severe than problems perceiving visual information, understanding icons and using the keyboard. This is largely explained by inclusion, independence and socialization, which are the three key components of real-life web use. This paper also shows that these aspects should be considered in other areas of web and ICT accessibility, as technophobia is not the only experience in the interactions of older people with the web, and both social relationships and life experiences beyond technologies need to be taken into account apart from age-related changes in abilities. These findings suggest that the current focus on compensating for age-related changes in functional abilities needs to be widened. Working towards making the web more accessible should not be divorced from real-life use. This paper discusses implications for web (and ICT) design, training and support.

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Notes

  1. Classical ethnography consists of a long period of immersion (minimum 1 year) into the daily activities of a community of people, combining observation with participation [43].

  2. Within Escola d’Adults La Verneda—St. Martí (an adult centre), http://www.edaverneda.org

  3. Half of the current Catalan population has its roots in other parts of Spain. This immigration took place in the 1930s/1940s. Immigrants have very low literacy levels, especially women. Another wave of immigration has been experienced recently, mostly coming from Morocco, South America, Pakistan, India and Romania, representing 13.1% of the population in 2006, with difficulties integrating into society due to language and cultural barriers. A description and analysis of the introduction of the network society in Catalonia can be found in [11].

  4. Dialogic learning assumes that knowledge is not always disseminated from the top down to students. It can flow from the bottom up. Individuals with no academic qualifications (e.g., older people), who would reject formal or academic activities because of a number of reasons (they think are unable to create new knowledge, scholastic skills are difficult to acquire in later life), can produce knowledge on the basis of their own experience and the exchange of information with other people.

  5. Changes in vision, hearing, cognition and mobility due to the normal process of ageing that do not limit the ability of an older person to carry out (Instrumental) Activities of Daily Living on his or her own.

  6. Organized monthly to discuss the positive and negative aspects of the courses and activities carried out in Àgora. These meetings are also an opportunity to discuss aspects of the use of the web (and other ICT), while workshops are hands-on sessions on technologies.

  7. Due to personal responsibilities (e.g., looking after their grandchildren or ill relatives) or because of ill- health conditions.

  8. Focus groups instead of individual interviews because the recruitment was easier to do with the former. Also, socialisation is a key aspect in the real-life use of computers and the web for older people, as discussed later on.

  9. The interactions of older people with online forms in two different was explored contexts, showning that increasing the size of asterisks does not help them fill in forms more correctly. Three web sites have been designed for different pensioner associations, an it has been found out that increasing the size of elements is much less relevant than better navigational structures and similarly when adapting an online web site to a mobile (PDA) version. Terms were also more relevant than icons in the design of a video web browser, blogs and Flickr prototypes for Àgora and for another association. See [61].

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Acknowledgments

We thank our participants for allowing us to learn many things and share their reality with the research community. We also thank David Sloan for his comments, our colleagues at the GTI for their feedback throughout our research and the reviewers of W4A and this special issue for their suggestions. Sergio also acknowledges the support of the Commission for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia.

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  1. Digital Media Access Group, School of Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK

    Sergio Sayago

  2. Interactive Technologies Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat, 138, E-08018, Barcelona, Spain

    Josep Blat

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  1. Sergio Sayago
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Correspondence to Sergio Sayago.

Appendix

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Table 2 Ethnographical implementation: courses, meetings and workshops
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Sayago, S., Blat, J. An ethnographical study of the accessibility barriers in the everyday interactions of older people with the web. Univ Access Inf Soc 10, 359–371 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-011-0221-4

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