fat finger worries: how older and younger users physically interact with pdas katie a. siek, yvonne...

Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs

Katie A. Siek, Yvonne Rogers, & Kay Connelly

Indiana University

The population of elderly people is steadily growing

Motivation Related Work Experiment FindingsStudy

Population Ages 15-64 Compared to Global Population

Researchers are creating technology for older people to live independently

Cognitive aid to help the elderly (S. Carmien, MAPS)

Elderly care-giving assistant(Girlado, et al., mPCA)


A majority of the related work deals with PCs and mobile phones


QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture. Elderly & PCs

• Font size (Bernard et al., 2001)

• Input Devices (Smith, et al. 1999; Chaparro, et al. 1999; Charness, et al. 1995; Laursen, et al. 2001)

• Input Device performance (Jacko, et al. 2003; Smith, et al. 1999; Laursen, et al. 2001)

Elderly & Mobile Phones

• Needs assessment(Maguire & Osman, 2003)

• Pros and Cons (Abascal & Civit 2001)

• Input recommendations (Smith, et al., 1999; Maguire, et al., 2003)

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Just to review

Do vision, dexterity, and coordination effects transfer to PDAs?

More specific goals:

1. Compare performance between older and younger participants completing traditional and non-traditional tasks

2. Study how older and younger participants physically interact with PDAs


Some of the tasks


Some of the tasks


Dexterity Vision

Dexterity & Coordination

Dexterity & Coordination

We created two applications

Icon Size Task

Recorded preferred icon size, smallest viewable icon, and image preference

Button Press Task

Recorded errors


We used three applications that came with the PDA or scanners

Voice Diary Task

Voice Diary lengths: 1 sec., 5 sec., 10-15 sec.

Recorded how many times it took to successfully voice record message

Scanner Tasks

Scanned three items: book, can, bag

Recorded how many times it took to successfully scan each item


Based on the literature, we predicted…


1. Participants of all ages can press PDA buttons

2. Participants of all ages prefer medium size (10mm or 15mm) icons

3. Participants can record voice messages of various lengths

4. Participants can scan bar codes with some practice

Twenty participants volunteered for the study

Younger

(25-30 years old)

• 2 women, 8 men

• 9 use computers often

• 3 had played with a PDA

• 6 wore glasses

Older

(75-85 years old)

• 5 women, 5 men

• 7 use computers often

• No PDA usage

• All wore glasses

Similar computer experience measured by the amount of applications used


Most participants did not make any mistakes for the button press task

5-Way Navigator


• 16 out of 20 participants made no mistakes

• All participants were confused by the 5-way navigator

• Older male participants worried about “fat fingers”

• PDA held in non-dominant hand

• No significant performance differences (T18=0.787; p=0.442)

There were significant differences in icon preference size

Small PDA Icon (5.29mm)

Young Can See (5.5mm)

Large PDA Icon (7.76mm)

Young Preferred Older Can See (10mm)

Older Preferred (20mm) • Significant differences between

preferred (T18=3.37, p=0.002) and icon size they could actually see (T18=3.25, p=0.004)

• Younger interested in how many icons can fit on a screen

• Older interested in details of image

• Older prefer photographs because more realistic

• Older had glare problems


The voice recording task was an easy task for most participants

• All participants recorded short message in two tries

• All of the younger participants recorded the long message on the first time

• Younger and older participants held the PDA differently

• No performance differences (T18< 0.5, p> 0.3)


Socket SDIO Scanner Baracoda Pen Scanner

Quick review of the scanners

• Press PDA button

• Hold light steady across barcode

• Press scanner button

• Run pen across barcode

The socket SDIO scanning task was slightly frustrating for participants

Older more successful at scanning during first try

Younger more successful at scanning during first try

4 younger and 2 older were able to scan within 3 tries

• Younger participants who practiced scanning book more, scanned bag quicker

• All participants operated PDA with one hand; used thumb to press button

• All participants were confused about what part of barcode to scan

• No performance differences

(T18< 0.9, p> 0.8)


The impossible task - Baracoda Pencil scanning

2 younger and 1 older scanned on first try

Only 3 participants were able to scan chips

No one successfully scanned the soda

• Women had difficulty using the pencil because of their nails

• Participants wanted to see a scanning light

• Participants rested the PDA on the table and used two hands for the pencil and object being scanned


Similar to our predictions, the key findings were…


• No performance difference in button press and voice recording task

• Small differences in preferred icon size - Younger (5mm or 10mm); Older (20mm)

• Older participants scanned items more, but had the same success rate

Future Work

• Increase sample size

• Investigate cognitive oriented tasks

• Test people with varying educational backgrounds

•Test younger people outside of academia and older people in public assisted living facilities

• Have participants stand or walk

Implications for developing applications on PDAs

• PDA applications can use current PDA buttons

• Icons will have to be larger

• Voice recording can be used for input

• Scanners can be used given enough practice time

Questions?

What do we mean by fat finger problem?

People have perceptions of what they can and can’t do

They prove themselves wrong

We did have problems with the Baracoda (more of a nail issue)


fat finger worries: how older and younger users physically interact with pdas katie a. siek, yvonne...

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