Authors:
Sergio Sayago
and
Josep Blat
Affiliation:
Interactive Technologies Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Keyword(s):
Young elderly people, word-processing functionalities, design of questionnaires, usability evaluation.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Accessibility to Disabled Users
;
Computer-Supported Education
;
Ubiquitous Learning
Abstract:
This short paper addresses two key questions about evaluating the usability of word-processing functionalities with the young elderly: (i) which factor (difficulties understanding the terminology, remembering the steps and using the mouse) is the most strongly correlated with the overall usability of some word-processing functionalities?; (ii) when designing a valid usability questionnaire for the elderly, do we need to adapt standard Likert scales? Both questions are answered after running a two-hour MS Word session at an adult school with five elderly people with experience with computers. The preliminary results point out that difficulties remembering the steps and using the mouse have a strong relationship with the overall usability of the word-processing functionalities evaluated. The responses elicited from elderly people are mostly dependent on the visual arrangement (vertical, horizontal) of standard Likert scales. The elderly draw firmly on everyday scales to answer question
naires. Nevertheless, Likert and everyday scales differ in significant ways. In everyday scales, the elements tend to be arranged vertically. In addition, top elements are usually regarded as the best or most expensive, interesting, etc. These differences turned out to have a strong impact on questionnaire’s validity and the adaptation strategy to cope effectively with them. Replacing numbers with adjectives is an effective design solution because adjectives seem to be easier to understand than numbers for the elderly.
(More)