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Relating computer tasks to existing knowledge to improve accessibility for older adults

Published: 25 October 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Routine computer tasks are often difficult for older adult computer users to learn and remember. People tend to learn new tasks by relating new concepts to existing knowledge. However, even for 'basic' computer tasks there is little, if any, existing knowledge on which older adults can base their learning. This paper investigates a custom file management interface that was designed to aid discovery and learnability by providing interface objects that are familiar to the user. A study was conducted which examined the differences between older and younger computer users when undertaking routine file management tasks using the standard Windows desktop as compared with the custom interface. Results showed that older adult computer users requested help more than ten times as often as younger users when using a standard windows/mouse configuration, made more mistakes and also required significantly more confirmations than younger users. The custom interface showed improvements over standard Windows/mouse, with fewer confirmations and less help being required. Hence, there is potential for an interface that closely mimics the real world to improve computer accessibility for older adults, aiding self-discovery and learnability.

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  • (2024)Empowering Autonomous Digital Learning for Older AdultsExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651133(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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  • (2022)Accessibility-Related Publication Distribution in HCI Based on a Meta-AnalysisExtended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491101.3519701(1-28)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2022
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      cover image ACM Conferences
      ASSETS '10: Proceedings of the 12th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility
      October 2010
      346 pages
      ISBN:9781605588810
      DOI:10.1145/1878803
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 25 October 2010

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      Author Tags

      1. human computer interaction
      2. older adults

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      View all
      • (2024)Empowering Autonomous Digital Learning for Older AdultsExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651133(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2024)Exploring the Opportunity of Augmented Reality (AR) in Supporting Older Adults to Explore and Learn Smartphone ApplicationsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641901(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
      • (2022)Accessibility-Related Publication Distribution in HCI Based on a Meta-AnalysisExtended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491101.3519701(1-28)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2022
      • (2021)What Do We Mean by “Accessibility Research”?Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445412(1-18)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
      • (2017)Going Gray, Failure to Hire, and the Ick FactorProceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/2998181.2998275(655-668)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
      • (2011)Investigating drag and drop techniques for older people with cognitive impairmentProceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction: users and applications - Volume Part IV10.5555/2027819.2027889(530-538)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2011

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