SOME ASPECTS OF DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE ONLINE
FORMS FOR THE YOUNG ELDERLY
Sergio Sayago and Josep Blat
Interactive Technologies Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Passeig Circumval·lació,8,Barcelona,Spain
Keywords: Online forms, young elderly people, web accessibility.
Abstract: This short paper reports on two key aspects for designing accessible online forms for the young elderly: (i)
distinguishing between required and optional fields and (ii) usability of checkboxes, radio-buttons and list-
boxes. Two hypotheses are tested with seven young elderly people in the course of designing a website for
an old-age pensioner association. Separating required and optional fields into two sections is easier for the
young elderly to understand and use than the current “asterisk” strategy which is invisible to them.
Checkboxes and radio-buttons are easier for the young elderly to use than list-boxes because the latter
requires a larger number of clicks in selection tasks. The results initially confirm both hypotheses, which
should become requirements for designing accessible online forms for the older population.
1 INTRODUCTION
Online forms are often used in a wide range of web
applications. Nevertheless, in spite of population
aging ((Edwards, 2002); (Larra, 2004)) and a serious
lack of web accessibility for the elderly, little
research has been carried out on designing
accessible online forms for them.
This short paper aims to report on two key
aspects for designing accessible online forms for the
young elderly: (i) distinguishing between required
and optional information; (ii) usability evaluation of
checkboxes, radio-buttons and list-boxes.
Aging is a dynamic process where the individual,
social and environmental context often play a
determining part in it. Three “types” of elderly
adults are generally distinguished in the literature on
The Psychology of Aging in order to group
phenomena: the oldest-old (85 and over), old-old
(75-84) and young-old (65-74). The young-old
outnumber the oldest-old and the old-old, and this
outnumbering is expected to become larger in the
near future (Larra, 2004).
1.1 Required and Optional
Information
During the course of designing a simple website for
an old-age pensioner association in Molins de Rei, a
little town near Barcelona (Spain), we found that
young elderly adults had difficulties filling in online
forms, as they had a number of problems to
distinguish between required and optional fields by
means of the usual asterisks, which appeared
invisible to them. This is a noteworthy accessibility
barrier.
Despite the general tendency of using asterisks,
there are other design strategies which were thought
to help elderly people to fill in online forms.
Namely, (Shneiderman, 1997) proposes separating
required and optional fields into two independent
sections. Nevertheless, online forms have largely
been overlooked by those web guidelines and
patterns which have specifically been aimed at the
elderly (e.g.; (Hodes and Lindberg, 2002, Holt,
2000, Echt, 2002, Holt and Morrell, 2002, Morrell et
al., 2003, Zajicek, 2004)).
1.2 Checkboxes, Radio-buttons and
List-boxes
Checkboxes, radio-buttons and list-boxes are widely
used in online forms. Nevertheless, clicking on them
requires precision and difficulties using the mouse
are one of the documented problems faced by
elderly people interacting with computers (e.g.;
(Fisk et al., 2004)).
At the old-age pensioner association, we found
out that selecting options from list-boxes was one of
13
Sayago S. and Blat J. (2007).
SOME ASPECTS OF DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE ONLINE FORMS FOR THE YOUNG ELDERLY.
In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Web Interfaces and Applications, pages 13-17
DOI: 10.5220/0001261500130017
Copyright
c
SciTePress
the most important difficulties experienced by our
users (apart from dealing with required and optional
fields) because unfolding the list of options and
selecting one required the users to be very precise in
using the mouse.
Assuming that elderly people only use the mouse
to deal with list-boxes and other widgets in online
forms, we thought that checkboxes and radio-buttons
would be easier to use than list-boxes. Two clicks
are at least required in order to select an option from
a list-box, when the same task can be conducted
with one click in either checkboxes or radio-buttons.
1.3 Hypotheses
The study described in this short paper aimed to test
the following hypotheses:
Separating required and optional fields into two
sections is easier for the young elderly to
understand and use than the current “asterisk”
strategy because they see clearly which fields
have to be filled.
Checkboxes and radio-buttons are easier for the
young elderly to use than list-boxes because the
latter requires a greater number of clicks in
selection tasks.
2 METHOD
2.1 Users
Seven elderly Spanish adults ranging in age from 65
to 74 took part in this study. All participants had
minor age-related declines in vision (e.g.; myopia
and astigmatism) and manual dexterity (e.g.;
arthritis). Two elderly people were skilled at using
computers. They write documents and seek
information on the Web on a daily basis. The rest of
the participants had little experience with computers.
2.2 Materials and Evaluation
Procedure
Four prototypes were designed, two for each
hypothesis, respectively. The prototypes are
described in the following sections.
The traditional usability test ((Nielsen, 1993);
(Rubin, 1994)) was carried out in the usability
evaluations of the four prototypes.
Prior to the tests, semi-structured interviews
were carried out in order to gather the difficulties
experienced by the participants in filling our online
forms.
During the tests, the users were asked to fill in
the prototypes as if they were truly surfing the Web.
With the aim of simulating real use, the prototypes
aimed to look like real online forms (e.g.; user’s
registration forms) as much as possible. The
participants were also required to think-aloud while
they were accomplishing the test tasks.
After the evaluations, participants were
informally interviewed in group (focus group) to
know which version had been the easiest to use and
why.
3 SCENARIO 1: REQUIRED AND
OPTIONAL INFORMATION
3.1 Objective
The aim of this scenario was to test the hypothesis
that separating required and optional fields into two
sections is easier for the young elderly to use than
the current strategy with asterisks.
Two prototypes were evaluated. Both of them
intended to look like typical online forms (e.g.;
registration forms) as much as possible. The same
number and type of fields were used in both
prototypes.
3.2 Description of the Two
Prototypes
Figure 1 shows the “asterisk online form”. Asterisks
are used in order to distinguish between required
(name and country) and optional (first and second
surname, e-mail) fields.
Figure 1: Asterisk online form.
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Figure 2: Divided online form.
Figure 2 shows the “divided online form”.
Unlike the previous prototype, the required and
optional fields are divided into two separated
sections, respectively.
It is worth remarking that both prototypes use
the same default values. Default values are
suggested by some guidelines (Shneiderman, 1997)
as a valuable mechanism to guide users through the
process of filling in online forms.
3.3 Results
Independently of previous experience with
computers, all the participants expressed a strong
preference towards the “divided online form”.
Asterisks were overlooked by all the users because
they assumed that all fields had to be filled.
Nevertheless, when they were informed about the
possibility of leaving some of them in blank, all the
participants had difficulties in getting to understand
the intended meaning of the asterisks. Although
these difficulties were overcome when they read the
legend, none of them started looking for it prior to
filling in the prototype. It seemed as if the asterisks
were ‘invisible’ or did not help the elderly to
filter/select information. This fact seems to
contradict other findings which point out that elderly
people are very cautious and “spend more time
reading information before clicking and even
pondering the pros and cons of clicking before
attempting to click a link” (Chadwick-Dias et al.,
2003).
By contrast, none of the users experienced
difficulties distinguishing between required and
optional information in the “divided online form”.
According to our analysis, the main reasons are two:
The “divided online form” was much clearer
than the “asterisk online form” because of
having two separated sections, which guided the
users in the process of distinguishing between
required and optional fields.
The “divided online form” was easier to use than
the “asterisk online form” since our users did not
have to read any instructions (e.g.; the legend) to
fill in it.
It is also worth mentioning that default values
were very useful in order for all the participants to
know how to fill each field.
4 SCENARIO 2: CHECKBOXES,
RADIO-BUTTONS AND
LIST-BOXES
4.1 Objective
The aim of this scenario was to test the hypothesis
that checkboxes and radio-buttons are easier for the
young elderly to use than list-boxes because the
latter requires a greater number of clicks in selection
tasks.
Two prototypes were evaluated. Both of them
intended to simulate online forms which typically
use these elements, such as online forms in
electronic polls. Our prototypes allowed the users to
select options from three categories, which were
found to appeal to our users: food (pasta, vegetables
and stew), traveling (Spain, Morocco, Brazil and
London) and sports (soccer, basketball and ballroom
dancing). The same number and type of fields were
used in both prototypes.
4.2 Description of the Two Prototypes
Figure 3 shows the prototype with radio-buttons and
checkboxes. Radio-buttons were used to allow users
to select a dish and a place to visit. Checkboxes were
used to allow users to select none, one or more types
of sport.
It should be noted that there is a small lack of
consistency between the two prototypes. The
prototype with list-boxes only allowed users to
select one type of sport, unlike the prototype with
checkboxes and radio-buttons. Due to the fact that
our aim was to compare the usability of these
widgets, it was assumed that this difference would
not be relevant for the purposes of our study.
SOME ASPECTS OF DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE ONLINE FORMS FOR THE YOUNG ELDERLY
15
Figure 3: Online form with checkboxes and radio-buttons.
Figure 4: Shows the prototype with list-boxes.
4.3 Results
Independently of experience with computers, all the
participants had difficulties using list-boxes.
According to our analysis, the main problems were
brought about by the need of clicking precision and
the larger number of clicks. The participants had to
click on the arrow of list-boxes in order to see the
list of available options. This task turned out to be
quite complicated on account of the small size of the
arrows. Afterwards, they had to select an option by
clicking on it.
These difficulties were overcome in the
prototype with checkboxes and radio-buttons. These
elements allowed the users to select options by
clicking directly on them. In addition to this, no
“extra” click was required to show the list of
available options because all of them were displayed
by default.
It is also worth noting that all the participants,
with the exception of those with previous experience
with computers, understood the main difference
between radio-buttons and checkboxes after the
tests. Before the session, they thought that the same
type of selection tasks could be carried out with both
widgets.
5 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
This short paper has aimed to report on two key
aspects for designing accessible online forms for the
young elderly. Two hypotheses have been tested
during the course of designing a website for a
Spanish old-age pensioner association:
Separating required and optional fields into two
sections is easier for the young elderly to
understand and use than the current “asterisk”
strategy because they distinguish clearly which
fields have to be filled.
Checkboxes and radio-buttons are easier for the
young elderly to use than list-boxes because the
latter requires a greater number of clicks in
selection tasks, which involve a precision they
might lack.
The results initially confirm these hypotheses.
Elderly people have difficulties both identifying and
understanding the meaning of asterisks. These
difficulties are overcome by separating required and
optional fields into two sections, respectively.
Checkboxes and radio-buttons are easier to use than
list-boxes. Selecting options from a list-box involves
more clicks and greater precision using the mouse
than doing the same task with either checkboxes or
radio-buttons.
Even though older people with previous
experience with computer overcome difficulties
faster than those without experience, it has been
found that the previous two findings seem to be
independent of the experience variable.
5.1 Some Implications
Current online forms do not meet the needs of the
elderly and the two strategies described should
become requirements for designing accessible online
forms for the elderly. In addition, as these
requirements deal with basic and common aspects of
WEBIST 2007 - International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies
16
computer-based forms, they are not necessarily
limited to online/web forms.
Difficulties interacting with list-boxes give rise
to several design concerns. If checkboxes and radio-
buttons are to be used with elderly people rather than
list-boxes, a larger number of options will be
rendered visible. As a consequence, the size of
online forms might grow considerably (e.g.; the
“country” field would demand the display of a huge
number of options, the countries). This might lead to
other accessibility issues, such as visual clustering, a
larger number of pages and scroll.
The results presented in this paper might also
contribute to current web guidelines or patterns for
the elderly, which have briefly been reviewed in the
first section of the paper, in addition to being used in
recent developments aiming at automatic
personalization of online forms for the elderly, such
as the DIADEM EU funded project (Lines et al.,
2006).
5.2 Limitations and Outlook
Web Accessibility with the elderly is a new and
growing research area and there are many
unanswered questions.
Our results are based on a small number of young
elderly people. Nevertheless, due to the fact that
aging is a very complex and heterogeneous process,
a larger number of elderly people with different
profiles and nationalities should be contemplated in
future studies. Working towards inclusive design,
comparisons with young and disabled people; more
complex online forms and quantitative analysis (e.g.;
time to carry out tasks) are worthy of attention in
order to pinpoint the effects of age and disabilities
on designing accessible online forms.
This study has focused on the mouse as the only
input device used by elderly people. However, they
might interact with online forms through alternative
input devices or assistive technologies, which could
be used together. Future studies might consider the
impact of input devices on the design of online
forms for the elderly.
Further studies are also needed in order to
evaluate the usability of more widgets with older
people, such as multiple list-boxes,.
We expect to address all these issues within the
context of our ongoing PhD research, which is
focused on ICT-based communication tools and
usability methods with the young elderly.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the Molins de Rei city
council and the Casal 1er de Maig (old-age
pensioner association) for their collaboration and
support. We also want to thank the reviewers for
their comments.
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