Re: Old Age and Accessibility

Dear Pete,

I've just been involved in a study for the DTI on the accessibility of 
Digital Television. As part of that we conducted usability/accessibility 
assessments on a number of set-top boxes with 12 older adults.

Within that study we found that apart from obvious usability no-no's, such 
as lack of consistency, by far the biggest problem was that the interfaces 
had been constructed as a mish-mash of analogue television, computer and 
VCR paradigms. While the older adults were generally OK with the first and 
last of these, it was the new PC bits that confused them. For example, the 
new pop-up menus on teletext-type services, and the need to press OK/Select 
every time they wanted to activate something (on analogue TV there is no 
equivalent of this function - every time you press a button something 
happens, the TV doesn't just sit there doing nothing).

The full report is available at:

http://www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk/pdfs/Digital_TV_for_all.pdf

and the detailed usability/accessibility assessment is Appendix E, at:

http://www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk/pdfs/Digital_TV_for_all_appendix_e.pdf

Regards,

Simeon




>Dear all,
>
>I wondered if anyone had any links or research information about 
>accessibility and usability issues for older users.
>
>Pete
>
>Peter Rainger ( <mailto:p.f.rainger@sussex.ac.uk>p.f.rainger@sussex.ac.uk )
>Research Officer
>
>TechDis @ Sussex
>Sussex School of Education
>The Sussex Institute
>University of Sussex
>Falmer, Brighton
>BN1 9QQ
>Tel: 01273 873600
><http://www.techdis.ac.uk>http://www.techdis.ac.uk
>
>"Inclusion through Innovation"

-------------------

Dr Simeon Keates
Senior Research Associate/The Royal Mail Research Fellow
Engineering Design Centre
University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1PZ
United Kingdom

URL: http://rehab-www.eng.cam.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1223 766958
Fax: +44 (0)1223 332662

2nd Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, UK - 22nd-24th March, 2004
http://rehab-www.eng.cam.ac.uk/cwuaat/cwuaat04.htm