M. Kurosu (Ed.): Human Centered Design, HCII 2009, LNCS 5619, pp. 476–481, 2009.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009
for the Elderly
Chiuhsiang Joe Lin, Tsung-Ling Hsieh, and Wei-Jung Shiang Department of Industrial Engineering Chung Yuan Christian University 200,
Chung Pei Rd Chung Li, Taiwan
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract. This study evaluated the influences of mobile phone interface design on the operating performance of aged people. To achieve the objective, the pre- sent research adopted a 2×2 within subject experimental design to develop dif- ferent experimental treatments based on two types of software interfaces and two types of hardware interfaces. A total of 20 subjects including 10 younger participants (15-30 years old) and 10 older participants (over 40 years old) were tested in this experiment. Three dependent variables were under study. One measure refers to the operating time of subjects who were requested to perform several tasks in the experiment. The second measure refers to the error fre- quency, defined by the number of incorrect steps that subjects make when they perform the tasks. The third variable was the subjective convenience that was measured by a seven-point Likert scale. Finally, this study discussed design di- rections in cell phone design for the aged people. The conclusions from this study provided a useful reference for the mobile phone designer.
Keywords: Elderly people, Mobile phone, Interface design.
1 Introduction
The distribution of cellular phones represents one of the fastest growing technological fields ever. In Taiwan, more than 69.9% of people had cellular phones [18]. In addi- tion, following the advancement of information technology, mobile phone becomes one of the daily necessities. The trend of the present mobile phone design is to manu- facture smaller and lighter ones, and probably more functions ever than in the past.
Consequently, enhancing the complexity on interface of cellular phones is critical for the operation of the users. According to Huang [9], the direction key that was hard- ware interface of cellular phone could divide into two types such as cross and duplet roughly. Furthermore, the main menu on the screen that was software interface of cellular phone also could divide into two types such as matrix and page roughly. The main menu with page type only showed single option by symbol and words once on the screen. Users need to operate the direction key to page the other options on the screen. On the other hand, the main menu with matrix type showed nine or twelve options by symbol and words once that arrange like matrix on the screen.
The interface design is certainly one of the most important factors for users to suc- cessfully operate the mobile phone. Nevertheless, if the interface designer did not
consider the cognition aspect of the user when they design the interface of a mobile phone, users will be more likely to encounter difficultly in using the phone [19].
Users could not only be aware all of the functions in the cellular phone quickly but also feel confused on operating easily by the software interface of matrix type [29].
Some studies of users’ experiences have shown that the current design trend may be inconvenient and not as friendly for the aged users [1]; [14]; [27]; [2]. Therefore, how to find the most suitable way to show the function would be one of the meaning issues with the designers of cellular phone.
In Taiwan, the number of people who were over 45 years old jumped up from about 3.5 million in 1980 and to over 8 million in 2007 [26]. According to the above, the elderly people are increasing in the population percentage of Taiwan and the population structure of Taiwan will enter into an ageing society. Ageing means the process that is an effect of the age increasing on the physiology of human [6]. Aging affects a wide range of human behaviour. Declines in human performance started to significantly affect physiological ability of human in the 40 years old [17]. Much research indicated the intelligence, memory, and attention of elderly people would degenerate more and more while their age is increasing [12]; [8]; [4]; [24]; [11]; [7];
[25]; [28], so elderly people learn new skill difficultly [22]; [30]. However, some studies have shown that most mobile phones often tailor to what the young people want but seem to neglect the requirement of the elderly people, leaving few types and selections for the elderly [3]; [20]; [16]; [23]; [15]. Consequently, elderly people would feel frustrated when they use these cellular phones that were designed for younger. Accordingly, this study focuses on exploring the suitable hardware and software interface design of cellular phone for elderly people.
2 Method
This research adopted a 2×2 within subject experiment design to develop different experimental treatments based on different types of software interface (matrix and page) and hardware interface (cross and duplet). A user interface for cellular phone was designed, containing four user interface of varying software interface and hard- ware interface. This research evaluated the influences of cellular phone interface design on the operating performance of aged people.
Three independent variables were under study. One refers to user age, comparing the operating performance of younger (15-30 years) and older adults (over 40 years).
The second variable was the software interface of cellular phone, defined by different types of the main menu presented on cellular phone screen. The third variable was the hardware interface of cellular phone, defined by different types of the direction key for controlling the aspect of options on software interface.
As dependent variables, the operating performances of different cellular phone in- terface designs were surveyed. In total, two different dependent variables were under study. One measure refers to the operating time of subjects who were requested to perform two tasks (i.e. setup alarm clock and call someone) in the experiment. An- other variable was the subjective convenience that was measured by five the Likert seven-point scale items.
The experimental process was: 1) before the experiment, first explain the experi- ment content and related special note, and acquaint participants with this cellular phone emulation program before operating. 2) Open the experiment interface and tell user the details of experiment 3) Participants perform three tasks with four interface conditions in random order. 4) After finishing three kind of tasks, let user write “Sub- jective convenience” questionnaire. 5) After taking a 30-minutes break, carry on other three kinds of different software and hardware interface design tasks and repeat steps 3), 4), and 5). The experiment was finished when user finished four kinds of cellular phones. After experimental data collection, a General Linear Model (GLM) statistical analysis was used to test the effect of the subjects’ age and interface designs of cellu- lar phone on the operating time and subjective convenience, and then also to test the interactive effect of the subjects’ age and interface designs.
3 Results
This study used GLM statistical analysis to explore the effect of age and cellular phone interface design on operating time and convenience of subjects. The result was shown as follow. First, there was a significantly different operating time of setup alarm clock between younger and older participants (F=10.98, P<0.05). The older participants’ operating time of setup alarm clock (M=58.10) was significantly higher than younger participants’ (M=25.15). Second, there was a significantly different operating time of setup alarm clock between cross and duplet hardware interface (F=6.95, P<0.05). The operating time of setup alarm clock by cross hardware inter- face (M=48.68) was significantly higher than duplet hardware interface (M=34.58).
Third, there was a significantly interaction effect of age and hardware interface design on operating time of setup alarm clock (F=3.86, P<0.1), which results showed on the figure 1.
70.4
26.95
45.8
23.35 10
20 30 40 50 60 70 80
younger older
age time of setup alarm
clock (sec.)
cross duplet
Fig. 1. The interaction effect of age and hardware interface design on operating time of setup alarm clock
The older participants’ operating time of setup alarm clock by cross hardware in- terface (M=70.40) was significantly higher than duplet hardware interface (M=45.80).
Therefore, the younger participants’ operating time of setup alarm clock by cross hardware interface (M=26.95) was no significantly with duplet hardware interface (M=23.35).
Fourth, there was a significantly different operating time of call someone between younger and older participants (F=6.29, P<0.05). The older participants’ operating time of call someone (M=49.90) was significantly higher than younger participants’
(M=8.60). Fifth, there was a significantly different subjective convenience between younger and older participants (F=4.25, P<0.1). The older participants’ subjective convenience (M=6.09) was significantly higher than younger participants’ (M=5.26).
Sixth, there was a significantly different subjective convenience between matrix and page software interface (F=3.20, P<0.1). The subjective convenience by page soft- ware interface (M=5.79) was significantly higher than matrix software interface (M=5.56). Finally, there was a significantly interaction effect of age and software interface design on subjective convenience (F=7.46, P<0.05), which results showed on the figure 2. The older participants’ subjective convenience by page software interface (M=6.15) was higher than matrix software interface (M=6.06). Therefore, the younger participants’ subjective convenience by matrix software interface (M=5.56) was higher than page software interface (M=4.96).
5.56 6.06
6.15
4.96
4 5 6 7
younger older
age subjective
convenience
matrix page
Fig. 2. The interaction effect of age and software interface design on subjective convenience
4 Discussion and Conclusion
This study evaluated the effect of age and interface design of cellular phone on oper- ating performance. According to the results, the operating time of older participants operating time was significantly higher than that of younger participants, substantiat- ing results of studies dealing with elderly people applying computer-based tasks [13];
[21]. Furthermore, the operating time of older participants with cross hardware inter- face was significantly higher than duplet hardware interface, but the operating time of
younger participants with cross hardware interface was no significantly with duplet hardware interface. In addition, the subjective convenience of older participants with page software interface was higher than matrix software interface, but the subjective convenience of younger participants with matrix software interface was higher than page software interface oppositely. This study speculates that maybe because a slow- ing down of functions with age can be observed regarding sensory performance [10];
[31], motor performance [28], and cognitive performance [5]. Not only the cross hardware interface but also the matrix software interface would be too complex to understand and operate for older participants, so the older participants would prefer to use easily, simply, and intelligibly interface design such as duplet hardware interface and page software interface.
The conclusions from this study could act as a useful reference for the designer of cellular phone in the process of designing suitable cellular phones to elderly people.
Simplifying the operating approach and decreasing the operating step would optimize the performance and subjective convenience of the elderly people.
Acknowledgments
This study is financially supported by a project from the National Science Council of Taiwan under contract No. NSC-97-2629-E-033-001.
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