Interface Adaption to Elderly Users: Effects of Icon Styles and Semantic Distance

Abstract

AbstractElderly users constitute the fastest expanding user group of the Internet and smart devices. However, there is a lack of research on the adaptation of user interfaces with regard to the elderly. This study focused on icons, which are widely used in today’s user interfaces but often lack proper design. The purpose of this study was to determine how different icon design strategies affect the user experience of older adults. We mainly studied two factors which were icon style and semantic distance, and investigated their influence on older users with different levels of smart phone using experience in terms of identification performance and subjective preference through a set of experiments and interviews. Results showed that both icon style and semantic distance significantly affected the preferences and performance of elderly adults. Interestingly, the experienced participants showed an overall better performance than inexperienced ones, which indicated that older users can adapt to simplified and abstract icons to a certain extent through learning and frequent use of smart devices; however, more careful design considerations are necessary to achieve a better user experience.KeywordsInterface adaptationIcon designUI designAge-related preference