Abstract
Touch screen interfaces are increasingly more popular. However, they lack haptic feedback, making it harder to perform certain tasks, such as text entry, where users have to constantly select one of many small targets. This problem particularly affects older users, whose deteriorating physical and cognitive conditions, combined with their unfamiliarity with technology, can discourage them from using touch devices. The goal of this work was to thoroughly understand older adults touch typing behavior, in order to develop text-entry solutions more appropriate to their needs, which will enhance their typing performance. On a first phase, a baseline QWERTY keyboard and five different variants were developed that mostly used a text prediction algorithm to suggest the most probable keys or words. These keyboards were evaluated on a baseline study with 20 younger adults in order to find the most promising ones, which were then used in a study with 20 older adults. The older adults study revealed more about their typing behavior and therefore created four new variants to be used in a simulation study. Results show that visual changes should be kept to a minimum; touch points should be shifted upward and to the opposite side of the hand used to type; single touch keyboards perform better than multi-touch; and omitting keys below a certain time threshold minimizes accidental insertions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al Faraj, K., Mojahid, M., Vigouroux, N.: Bigkey: A virtual keyboard for mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction. Part III: Ubiquitous and Intelligent Interaction, pp. 3–10. Springer Berlin (2009)
Annett, M., Anderson, F., Goertzen, D., Halton, J., Ranson, Q., Bischof, W.F., Boulanger, P.: Using a multi-touch tabletop for upper extremity motor rehabilitation. In: Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer–Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/7 (OZCHI ’09), pp. 261–264. ACM (2009)
Apted, T., Kay, J., Quigley, A.: Tabletop sharing of digital photographs for the elderly. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’06), pp. 781–790. ACM (2006)
Azenkot, S., Zhai, S.: Touch behavior with different postures on soft smartphone keyboards. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’12), pp. 251–260. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2371574.2371612
Bain, P., Mally, J., Gresty, M., Findley, L.: Assessing the impact of essential tremor on upper limb function. J. Neurol. 241(1) (1993). doi:10.1007/BF00870673
Brewster, S., Chohan, F., Brown, L.: Tactile feedback for mobile interactions. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’07), pp. 159–162. ACM, New York (2007). doi:10.1145/1240624.1240649
Carstensen, L.L., Hartel, C.R.: When I’m 64, 1st edn. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (2008)
Cheng, L.P., Liang, H.S., Wu, C.Y., Chen, M.Y.: iGrasp: Grasp-based adaptive keyboard for mobile devices. In: CHI ’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’13), pp. 2791–2792. ACM, New York (2013). doi:10.1145/2468356.2479514
Dunlop, M., Levine, J.: Multidimensional pareto optimization of touchscreen keyboards for speed, familiarity and improved spell checking. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’12), pp. 2669–2678. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2207676.2208659
Findlater, L., Wobbrock, J.: Personalized input: improving ten-finger touchscreen typing through automatic adaptation. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’12), pp. 815–824. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2207676.2208520
Fisk, A.D., Rogers, W.A., Charness, N., Czaja, S.J., Sharit, J.: Designing for Older Adults: Principles and Creative Human Factors. Human Factors and Aging Series, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2009)
Garay-Vitoria, N.: Sistemas de predicción lingüística. aplicación a idiomas con alto y bajo grado de flexión, en el ámbito de la comunicación alternativa y aumentativa. Servicio Editorial de la UPV-EHU, Leioa (2001)
Garay-Vitoria, N., Abascal, J.G.: Using statistical and syntactic information in word prediction for input speed enhancement. BIWIT-94 (Basque International Workshop on Information Technology), pp. 223–230. Information Systems Design and Hypermedia, Anglet (France) (1994)
Garay-Vitoria, N., Abascal, J.: Text prediction systems: a survey. Univers. Access Inf. Soc. 4(3), 188–203 (2006). doi:10.1007/s10209-005-0005-9
Gunawardana, A., Paek, T., Meek, C.: Usability guided key-target resizing for soft keyboards. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI ’10), pp. 111–118. ACM, New York (2010). doi:10.1145/1719970.1719986
Heckathorne, C., Childress, D.S.: Applying anticipatory text selection in a writing aid for people with severe motor impairment. IEEE Micro 3(3), 17–23 (1983). doi:10.1109/MM.1983.291116
Henze, N., Rukzio, E., Boll, S.: 100,000,000 taps: analysis and improvement of touch performance in the large. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’11), pp. 133–142. ACM, New York (2011). doi:10.1145/2037373.2037395
Henze, N., Rukzio, E., Boll, S.: Observational and experimental investigation of typing behaviour using virtual keyboards for mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’12), pp. 2659–2668. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2207676.2208658
Hoaglin, D.C., Iglewicz, B.: Fine-tuning some resistant rules for outlier labeling. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 82(400), 1147–1149 (1987)
Hoggan, E.E., Brewster, S.A., Johnston, J.: Investigating the effectiveness of tactile feedback for mobile touchscreens. In: Computer Human Interaction, pp. 1573–1582 (2008). doi:10.1145/1357054.1357300
Hunnicutt, S.: Input and output alternatives in word prediction. STL/QPRS 2(3), 15–29 (1987)
Hwangbo, H., Yoon, S.H., Jin, B.S., Han, Y.S., Ji, Y.G.: A study of pointing performance of elderly users on smartphones. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact. 29(9), 604–618 (2013)
Jin, Z.X., Plocher, T., Kiff, L.: Touch screen user interfaces for older adults: button size and spacing. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Universal Access in Human–Computer Interaction: Coping with Diversity (UAHCI ’07), pp. 933–941. Springer, Berlin (2007). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1766311.1766419
Ketcham, C.J., Seidler, R.D., Van Gemmert, A.W., Stelmach, G.E.: Age-related kinematic differences as influenced by task difficulty, target size, and movement amplitude. J. Gerontol. Ser. B Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci. 57(1), 54–64 (2002)
Kobayashi, M., Hiyama, A., Miura, T., Asakawa, C., Hirose, M., Ifukube, T.: Elderly user evaluation of mobile touchscreen interactions. In: Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction, vol. Part I (INTERACT ’11), pp. 83–99. Springer, Berlin (2011). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2042053.2042065
Lepicard, G., Vigouroux, N.: Touch screen user interfaces for older subjects: Effect of the targets number and the two hands use. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP ’10), pp. 592–599. Springer, Berlin (2010). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1880751.1880851
Loureiro, B., Rodrigues, R.: Multi-touch as a natural user interface for elders: a survey. In: 6th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI ’11) (2011)
Lucas, D.: Disabled ‘r’ All. Master’s thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico (2012)
MacKenzie, I.S., Soukoreff, R.W.: A character-level error analysis technique for evaluating text entry methods. In: Proceedings of the Second Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’02), pp. 243–246. ACM, New York (2002). doi:10.1145/572020.572056
MacKenzie, I.S., Zhang, X.: Eye typing using word and letter prediction and a fixation algorithm. In: Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA ’08), pp. 55–58. ACM, New York (2008). doi:10.1145/1344471.1344484
Mackenzie, S.I., Soukoreff, W.R.: Text entry for mobile computing: models and methods, theory and practice. Hum. Comput. Interact. 17(2–3), 147–198 (2002)
Matero, J., Colley, A.: Identifying unintentional touches on handheld touch screen devices. In: Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’12), pp. 506–509. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2317956.2318031
Medline Plus: Aging Changes in the Bones–Muscles–Joints (2012). http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/004015.htm
Nicolau, H.: Disabled ’r’ all: Bridging the Gap Between Health- and Situationally-Induced Impairments and Disabilities. Ph.D. thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico (2013)
Nicolau, H., Jorge, J.: Elderly text-entry performance on touchscreens. In: Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’12). ACM (2012). doi:10.1145/2384916.2384939
Oulasvirta, A., Reichel, A., Li, W., Zhang, Y., Bachynskyi, M., Vertanen, K., Kristensson, P.O.: Improving two-thumb text entry on touchscreen devices. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’13), pp. 2765–2774. ACM, New York (2013). doi:10.1145/2470654.2481383
Pak, R., McLaughlin, A.: Designing Displays for Older Adults. Human Factors and Aging Series. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2010)
Piper, A.M., Campbell, R., Hollan, J.D.: Exploring the accessibility and appeal of surface computing for older adult health care support. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’10), pp. 907–916. ACM (2010)
Poupyrev, I., Maruyama, S.: Tactile Interfaces for Small Touch Screens. In: Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’03), pp. 217–220. ACM, New York (2003). doi:10.1145/964696.964721
Soukoreff, R.W., MacKenzie, I.S.: Recent developments in text-entry error rate measurement. In: CHI ’04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’04), pp. 1425–1428. ACM, New York (2004). doi:10.1145/985921.986081
Stone, R.G.: Mobile touch interfaces for the elderly. In: Proceedings of ICT, Society and Human Beings. International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) (2008)
Swiffin, A., Arnott, J., Pickering, J.A., Newell, A.: Adaptive and predictive techniques in a communication prosthesis. Augment. Altern. Commun. 3(4), 181–191 (1987)
Trewin, S., Pain, H.: A model of keyboard configuration requirements. In: Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets ’98), pp. 173–181. ACM, New York (1998). doi:10.1145/274497.274530
Tsai, T.H., Chang, H.T., Chang, Y.M., Huang, G.S.: Sharetouch: a system to enrich social network experiences for the elderly. J. Syst. Softw. 85(6), 1363–1369 (2012)
Venkatagiri, H.: Efficiency of lexical prediction as a communication acceleration technique. Augment. Altern. Commun. 9(3), 161–167 (1993)
Victoria Meza-Kubo Alberto L Morán, M.R.: Intouchfun, a pervasive collaborative system to cope with elder’s isolation and cognitive decline. In: Proceedings of the UbiComp (2010)
Werner, F., Werner, K., Oberzaucher, J.: Tablets for seniors—an evaluation of a current model (ipad). In: Wichert, R., Eberhardt, B. (eds.) Ambient Assisted Living, Advanced Technologies and Societal Change, pp. 177–184. Springer, Berlin (2012)
WHO: Global Health and Aging. http://www.who.int/ageing/publications/global_health.pdf (2012)
Wobbrock, J.O., Morris, M.R., Wilson, A.D.: Understanding users’ preferences for surface gestures. In: Proceedings of the Graphics Interface (GI ’10), pp. 261–268. Canadian Information Processing Society, Toronto (2010). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1839214.1839260
Yin, Y., Ouyang, T.Y., Partridge, K., Zhai, S.: Making touchscreen keyboards adaptive to keys, hand postures, and individuals: a hierarchical spatial backoff model approach. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’13), pp. 2775–2784. ACM, New York (2013). doi:10.1145/2470654.2481384
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by FCT (INESC-ID multiannual funding) under the Project PEst-OE/ EEI/LA0021/2013 and the project PAELife, reference AAL/ 0014/2009.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rodrigues, É., Carreira, M. & Gonçalves, D. Enhancing typing performance of older adults on tablets. Univ Access Inf Soc 15, 393–418 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0394-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0394-8