The Effect of Age-Related Cognitive Differences, Task Complexity and Prior Internet Experience in the Use of an On-line Grocery Shop

Abstract

This study examined navigation and search in an on-line grocery store, and how solving those tasks was related to subjects' age, spatial ability, working memory, computer- and Internet experience. Task complexity was also included in the design of the experiment. In the study 48 subjects participated, there was one group of elderly and one group of younger subjects. The results showed that the elderly subjects needed more time to complete the tasks. Both age groups spent more time to find the items in the complex task, but there were also age differences for the complex task, where the elderly subjects spent more time with the complex task. It turned out that age, spatial visualisation ability and working memory had the strongest impact on performance for the complex task. For the easy task, on the other hand, Internet experience had the strongest impact on performance. Though this may seem discouraging to elderly users, it was also the case that the elderly, less experienced, subjects underestimated the time they spent performing the tasks. Thus, even if it took long time to solve the tasks, these elderly users did not experience it as such. Finally, implications for interface design of on-line grocery stores are discussed.