Tips for Conducting Usability Studies with Older Adults

1. Tips for Conducting Usability Studies with Older Adults Seminar on Older Users and the Web GSA & AARP Washington, DC July 20, 2004 Thomas S. Tullis, Ph.D. Senior Vice President Human Interface Design Fidelity Investments tom.tullis@fmr.com

2. Usability Lab at Fidelity

3. Usability Tests with Older Adults Over the past 3 years, we’ve conducted usability sessions with about 150 people 50 or older. Oldest participant: 85 Wide range of Web skills

4. Tips for Testing with Older Users • Recruiting • Planning and Preparation • Testing • Participatory design (FIDO)

5. Recruiting Tips • If you care about level of web expertise, may need to develop better screening criteria: • Frequency of web use • How long they’ve been using the web • Variety of sites visited • Variety of tasks performed (email, purchasing, etc) • How they learned to use the web • Those who retired before the web was common in the workplace will tend to have less web expertise, even if they use it every day.

6. Recruiting Tips • Consider networking for recruiting • e.g., “family and friends”, contacts, etc • Older adults seem less likely to respond to “cold call” requests to participate • Logistics of getting to the test: • Consider conducting it at a Senior Center. • Consider special arrangements for getting to a Usability Lab. • Let them bring their spouse or a friend. • Make sure all aspects of the test are described before-hand (e.g., videotaping).

7. Planning and Preparation Tips • Consider using co-discovery (paired users) • Especially appropriate for husband and wife • Be prepared for them to show up for the test early! • Schedule more time for a session than you would with younger users. • For pre-test briefing • For actual testing • For post-test debriefing

8. Planning and Preparation Tips • Learn as much about their normal computer environment as possible and try to replicate it, e.g.: • Operating system • Browser • Monitor size • Screen resolution • Special keyboard characteristics (e.g., larger keys) • Mouse type (e.g., scroll wheel or not)

9. Testing Tips • If you normally moderate the study from another room, consider moderating from the same room as the user. • Puts the user more at ease. • Works better for users with hearing impairments. • Some older users have an even greater tendency to attribute difficulties they encounter to themselves. • Watch for this and be prepared to deal with it.

10. Testing Tips • Be particularly careful about using web or technical jargon in your: • Task descriptions • Interaction with the user • Some terms you might not think of as jargon: • Home • Login • Window

11. Participatory Design Tips • A technique that has worked well for us to involve older adults in the user-centered design process: • FIDO: Freehand Interactive Design Offline • For details, see paper presented at UPA 2004: • Donna Tedesco, Ann Chadwick-Dias, & Tom Tullis (2004). Freehand Interactive Design Offline (FIDO): A New Methodology for Participatory Design. • Contact: donna.tedesco@fidelity.com.

12. The FIDO Technique • Give users a set of web-page components, or building blocks, printed on magnetic paper. • Ask them to build their own page(s).

13. Our Study Using FIDO • Took screen shots of the home pages of Fidelity.com plus five of our competitors. • “Anonymized” them (removed references to company names, etc).

14. Our Study Using FIDO • Printed the screen-shots (in grayscale) on magnetic-backed paper. • Laminated them. • Cut them into their components (abt 130).

15. Presented the Elements to Users

16. Simulated Browser Window Asked users to “build” their ideal financial services homepage.

17. A Sample Session

18. Data Collection Took digital photos of the pages built. Also took digital photos under “black light” to facilitate documenting the element IDs!

19. Sample Pages Built

20. Advantages of FIDO • Less anxiety-producing than interacting with a real system, especially for older adults. • Fun and interactive! • Use as much space as you need. • Can be done as a group exercise. • Users could be allowed to add their own content.