Interactive Design And Application To Improve The Learning Effect Of Smart Phones For Older Adults

With the advent of the smart era,smartphones are gradually becoming integrated into the daily lives of older adults.Various smartphone applications facilitate older adults'lives.However,older adults suffer many difficulties in learning and using smartphone applications.It is difficult for older adults to find someone who teaches them to use smartphone applications.Existing studies on smartphones for older adults mainly focus on the use of smartphones,but there are few studies for the smartphone learning of older adults.This study investigated the problem of the smartphone learning of older adults from the perspective of interactive design and instructional design through four experiments.Experiment one and experiment two explored the influence of related factors in remote learning and the video learning,respectively.Experiment two and experiment four furtherly investigated the problems of information navigation based on experiment one and experiment three,respectively.Experiment one investigated the influence of learning styles and information layouts on learning performance and acceptance when older adults learned to use smartphone applications through the remote assistance way.24 older adults participated in the experiment.In the situation of simulated remote assistance,they needed to learn smartphone applications owned three different information layouts using one of two learning styles.The experimental results indicated that compared with the procedural learning,which is step-by-step instruction,the metaphorical learning contributed to greater ease of learning,higher satisfaction,and shorter task completion time in older adults remotely learning smartphone applications.In terms of information layouts,compared with the information layout balancing the horizontal depth and breadth(structure 2×2),the information layout that was more prominent in one aspect of horizontal depth or breadth(structure 1×4 or 4×1)had better performance for older adults on ease of learning,satisfaction,and task completion time.Moreover,the effect of the breadth was greater for older adults'learning performance than that of horizontal depth(structure 1×4<structure 4×1).That is,the deeper and narrower information layout was more conducive for the learning of older adults than the shallower and wider information layout.Experiment two deepened the research on the structural aspect of Experiment one and investigated the influence of different information structures of smartphone applications on older adults'learning performance and subjective preferences.30 older adults participated in the experiment.They needed to learn five smartphone applications with different information structures,including,2~8,4~4,4~1+8~2,8~2+41,and 16~2.The experimental results indicated that among the five different information structures,structure 2~8 contributed to fewer error return times,shorter task completion time,and higher directionless similarity when older adults learned smartphone applications.In addition,older adults preferred to learn the smartphone applications with structure 2~8 and 4~4.Experiment three investigated the influence of visual cues and tapping methods for the learning performance and subjective feedback of older adults when they learned smartphone applications through instructional videos.24 older adults participated in the experiment.They needed to learn smartphone applications with two different tapping methods(the tapping with/without validation method)through three types of instructional videos with different visual cues(red rectangle,cartoon finger,and real finger).The experimental results indicated that use of a cartoon finger in instructional videos contributed to higher intention to use,higher ease of learning,higher satisfaction,and shorter task completion time compared with use of a red rectangle or a real finger.For the tapping methods,it was appropriated to separate the selection and validation phase of the tapping gesture when older adults learn smartphone applications.Experiment four was a further research for older adults'problems on the perception of visual feedback and return operation in Experiment three and investigated the influence of visual feedback delays and return methods for the learning performance and subjective feedback of older adults learning smartphone applications.48 older adults participated in the experiment.They needed to learn smartphone applications with two return methods and three visual feedback delays.The experimental results indicated that the visual feedback delay setting could effectively improve ease of learning,subjective navigation and control,and short task completion time,and improve task completion rate.Meanwhile,the duration of the visual feedback delay depended on the corresponding interaction and user experience.For the return methods,compared with button return,multipage interface return contributed to higher ease of learning,higher subjective feedback,higher control,and shorter task completion time,and higher task completion rate.This study deepened the research of interactive design and instructional design in older adults learning smartphones.The experimental results provided corresponding guidelines for the smartphone learning of older adults.