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A preliminary usability evaluation of strategies for seeking online information with elderly people

Published: 07 May 2007 Publication History

Abstract

This short paper describes an experimental study with elderly users comparing three strategies for seeking online information, Google basic search, the Yahoo! Directory and Google advanced search. The effect or three general usability criteria for the elderly, simplicity, difficulties using the mouse and cautious clicking and reading, on the total search time older people spend seeking complex online information with the three strategies has been studied. The hypothesis that basic search is the fastest strategy because it meets the three usability criteria, unlike the other two strategies, is confirmed. Older people were 3 times faster in basic search than in either advanced search or directory. Advanced search was slower than basic search due to information overload but faster than the directory, which was the slowest strategy primarily due to difficulties using the mouse and information overload.

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  • (2024)Learning Objectives in Older Adult Digital Education - Redefining Digital InclusionInternational Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE)10.23947/2334-8496-2024-12-3-507-52012:3(507-520)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2024
  • (2020)Choice-Based User Interface Design of a Smart Healthy Food Recommender System for Nudging Eating Behavior of Older Adult Patients with Newly Diagnosed Type II DiabetesHuman Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Healthy and Active Aging10.1007/978-3-030-50249-2_17(221-234)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2020
  • (2019)Assistive TechnologiesWeb Accessibility10.1007/978-1-4471-7440-0_18(317-335)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2019
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  1. A preliminary usability evaluation of strategies for seeking online information with elderly people

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        cover image ACM Conferences
        W4A '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international cross-disciplinary conference on Web accessibility (W4A)
        May 2007
        179 pages
        ISBN:1595935908
        DOI:10.1145/1243441
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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        Published: 07 May 2007

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        Author Tags

        1. older people
        2. seeking online information strategies
        3. usability

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        W4A '07 Paper Acceptance Rate 11 of 27 submissions, 41%;
        Overall Acceptance Rate 171 of 371 submissions, 46%

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        View all
        • (2024)Learning Objectives in Older Adult Digital Education - Redefining Digital InclusionInternational Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education (IJCRSEE)10.23947/2334-8496-2024-12-3-507-52012:3(507-520)Online publication date: 30-Dec-2024
        • (2020)Choice-Based User Interface Design of a Smart Healthy Food Recommender System for Nudging Eating Behavior of Older Adult Patients with Newly Diagnosed Type II DiabetesHuman Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Healthy and Active Aging10.1007/978-3-030-50249-2_17(221-234)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2020
        • (2019)Assistive TechnologiesWeb Accessibility10.1007/978-1-4471-7440-0_18(317-335)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2019
        • (2010)Improving WCAG for elderly web accessibilityProceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication10.1145/1878450.1878480(175-182)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2010
        • (2009)User requirement analysis for a railway ticketing portal with emphasis on semantic accessibility for older usersProceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)10.1145/1535654.1535683(114-122)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2009
        • (2009)About the relevance of accessibility barriers in the everyday interactions of older people with the webProceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)10.1145/1535654.1535682(104-113)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2009
        • (2009)Age and web accessProceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)10.1145/1535654.1535658(7-15)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2009
        • (2009)A Usability and Accessibility Design and Evaluation Framework for ICT ServicesProceedings of the 5th Symposium of the Workgroup Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Engineering of the Austrian Computer Society on HCI and Usability for e-Inclusion10.1007/978-3-642-10308-7_7(102-110)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2009

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