Usability of touch-panel interfaces for older adults.
The usability of a touch-panel interface was compared among young, middle-aged, and older adults. In addition, a performance model of a touch panel was developed so that pointing time could be predicted with higher accuracy. Moreover, the target location to which a participant could point most quickly was determined. The pointing time with a PC mouse was longer for the older adults than for the other age groups, whereas there were no significant differences in pointing time among the three age groups when a touch-panel interface was used. Pointing to the center of a square target led to the fastest pointing time among nine target locations. Based on these results, we offer some guidelines for the design of touch-panel interfaces and show implications for users of different age groups. Actual or potential applications of this research include designing touch-panel interfaces to make them accessible for older adults and predicting movement times when users operate such devices.
Hiroshima City University, Department of Computer and Media Technologies, 3-4-1, Ozukahigashi, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima 731-3194, Japan. murata@cs.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp
Atsuo
A
Murata
Hirokazu
H
Iwase
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016287:Computer Peripherals; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D014110:Touch; D014584:User-Computer Interface