Utopia logo

Older Adults' Use of Computers: A Survey

J. Goodman, A. Syme & R. Eisma

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multi-modal Interaction group (Mig)

Glasgow Interactive Systems Group (GIST) logo - 
                     click here to go to the GIST Website

Abstract

Older people are an important and growing sector of the population, of whom the numbers who use computers are increasing rapidly. Yet their requirements are not often considered in the design of computer systems and software, and as a result they often find them difficult to use. In order to include them effectively, it is first necessary to find out more about how this population interacts with computers. As a first step towards this, we carried out a questionnaire and interview survey with 353 participants over the age of 50, including questions on computer use and ownership. This paper discusses the implications of some of the results for design and marketing, in particular the importance of simplicity and an application's perceived usefulness.

The full paper

BibTeX citation

@InProceedings{good*03b,
  author = "Joy Goodman and Audrey Syme and Roos Eisma",
  title = "Older Adults' Use of Computers: A Survey",
  booktitle = "HCI 2003",
  year = 2003,
  address = "Bath, UK",
  month = Sep}