title: The influence of age in usability testing.
abstract: The effects of age in usability testing were examined in an experiment. Sixty users from two age groups (M = 23.0 yrs, M = 58.1 yrs) operated two technical devices (keyboard-based and touchscreen-based smartphones). In addition to various performance measures (e.g. task completion time, task completion rate), several subjective measures were taken (e.g. perceived usability, affect, and workload). The results showed better performance scores for younger adults than older adults for task completion time. For older adult users there was a mismatch between usability ratings and task completion time but not between usability ratings and task completion rate. Age-related differences in the importance of speed and accuracy in task completion point to the need to consider more strongly the factor user age in usability research and practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland. Electronic address: andreas.sonderegger@unifr.ch.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sonderegger
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmutz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Juergen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sauer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D016526:Workload; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Affect; Age; Performance; Usability; User experience