By February 2009, all over-the-air television broadcasts in the United States will be digital. There are good reasons for the switch such as better use of bandwidth. However, people who still use rabbit ear antennas for TV reception will need a new digital converter box which is not a simple undertaking. While this video is obviously tongue-in-cheek, the switch-over will not be easy for many. As the video illustrates, it is not clear how to get an antenna, and afterward, how to install it.
In the recent issue of the journal Psychology and Aging, researchers Andrew Reed, Joseph Mikels, and Kosali Simon examined whether older adults would prefer having fewer options when faced with a decision-making task. Confirming previous research, they found that across 6 domains (e.g., prescription health plans, hospitals), older adults preferred having fewer options rather than greater.
In their study, 102 older adults (ranging in age from 60-94) and 99 younger adults (ranging in age from 18-24) completed questionnaires asking about their desired number of choices in everyday decisions.
The authors surmised that older adults prefered fewer choices because of their awareness of their reduced decision-making competence (metacognitive recognition of their own limitations).
This kind of research certainly could have human factors and design implications. However, it might be too simplistic to just suggest that we give older adults fewer options. More research is necessary
A new Pew report examines the usage of cloud computing applications and services which is a topic I’ve been interested in recently. Something noteworthy was that, as we suspected, older adults don’t appreciate the benefits of cloud computing compared to other age groups:
Older adults’ are seemingly the ones who could benefit most from cloud computing. Keeping mail or other information in the cloud means that the user doesn’t have to configure their mail client, maintain their computer, etc.
I‘ve always thought text inputs from anything other than a keyboard were clunky. Cliff Kushler, the man who invented T9 (a word completion aid) has developed Swype, a new text entry method that capitalizes on eliminating the press and release component of the touchscreen. What was once a discrete target acquisition task becomes a continuous one.
In the CNET interview, Kushler points out his age (55) and his words-per-minute with Swype (50). Not bad.
If you’re interested in research on alternate text input devices, check out some of the following:
Wobbrock, J.O. and Myers, B.A. (2008). Enabling devices, empowering people: The design and evaluation of Trackball EdgeWrite. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 35-56.
I was recently interviewed by our campus news service about receiving a Google Research Award to study information retrieval and aging. The research involves designing information retrieval interfaces around the capabilities and limitations of older adults (those age 60 and above). Here is a snippet from the press release:
Richard Pak, an assistant professor of psychology, has received a $50,000 gift from Google to study how older adults navigate the Web and what Web site design features make searches easier. The grant will fund an extension of his research on aging and technology.
…
“The findings are that when you take a Web site and organize it hierarchically — like how you might organize your documents on your computer with folders within folders — older adults are much slower and make more errors when they are searching for information compared to younger adults,” Pak said. “We think that this is the case because the situation does not allow older adults to use their greater knowledge toward the situation. However, when you take that same Web site and organize it around keywords or concepts instead of folders, older adults are able to bring their wealth of general knowledge to the situation and perform almost equivalently to younger adults in the task.”
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That is, older adults seem to perform better using so-called “tag-based sites,” which are Web sites that organize their information around frequently used keywords. Pak said that while tag-based sites are still relatively new, several popular sites use tags. These include Amazon.com, Gmail.com, and the photo sharing Web site Flickr.com.
NEW YORK - If Sen. John McCain is really serious about becoming a Web-savvy citizen, perhaps Kathryn Robinson can help.
Robinson is now 106 — that’s 35 years older than McCain — and she began using the Internet at 98, at the Barclay Friends home in West Chester, Pa., where she lives. “I started to learn because I wanted to e-mail my family,” she says — in an e-mail message, naturally.
Blogs have been buzzing recently over McCain’s admission that when it comes to the Internet, “I’m an illiterate who has to rely on his wife for any assistance he can get.” And the 71-year-old presumptive Republican nominee, asked about his Web use last week by the New York Times, said that aides “go on for me. I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.”
The journal, Human Factors, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a retrospective of some pivotal research and areas. To celebrate, the entire issue is available online for free. Some highlights:
The Split Keyboard: An Ergonomics Success Story
The Role of Expertise Research and Human Factors in Capturing, Explaining, and Producing Superior Performance
Multiple Resources and Mental Workload
Putting the Brain to Work: Neuroergonomics Past, Present, and Future
Discoveries and Developments in Human-Computer Interaction
