Research on Interactive Device Ergonomics Designed for Elderly Users in the Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

In the era of aging society in China, focusing on the issue that it is difficult for elderly people to operate a variety of computing devices with the physiological and psychological changes brought by the aging, a research for ergonomics of interactive devices was put forward for elderly user groups. The research studied the performance of elderly people using the mouse, stylus and touchscreen to perform two-dimensional pointing tasks, compared with younger people, in the computer user interface by controlled experiments, measured the movement time and hit accuracy, and also investigated the subjective experience when they used the three input devices for completing two-dimensional pointing tasks. Experimental data analysis showed that elderly people spend more time than younger people to complete the pointing tasks with any of the three input devices, Fitts' law still hold when the elderly people used mouse, stylus and touchscreen to perform the two-dimensional pointing tasks, and the use of touchscreen can achieve higher performance with the target size should not less than 80 pixels (about 11.2 mm) for both elderly and younger people. Elderly people can benefit more from the touchscreen than younger people.