Towards ICT Support for Elderly Displaced
People: Looking for Natural Gestures
Alessandra Melonio, Laura Tarantino, and Tania Di Mascio
Abstract In the aftermath of natural disaster ICT-based tools can support technology-erudite people but risk to sharpen the isolation of vulnerable population groups
because, e.g., of grey digital divide. In this paper we discuss some usability studies
performed after L’Aquila earthquake on elderly people at risk of social isolation,
to single out interaction needs and platform requirements for easy-to-use elderly
oriented tools ideally not requiring learning need. In particular, we focus our
analysis on intuitiveness of multifinger gestures on tablets.
1 Introduction
The study here reported originated within the context of more general studies
launched after the L’Aquila earthquake, aimed at designing ICT-based support
tools for populations hit by natural disasters. Though in the immediate aftermath
of a disaster most of the attention is focused on material needs and material
damages, social and psychological immaterial damages may result even more
relevant than material ones (see, e.g., [9, 14]). Social interaction is recognized as
a key factor for the reconstruction of broken social ties and of a new universe
of legitimate shared meanings [14], but this process can be hampered by the
geographical dispersion of the population caused by post-disaster evacuation and
displacement.
In the cyberspace era, which offers immaterial spaces where communication
may take place, it is legitimate to investigate on the kind of ICT-based interaction
that may support the social recovery [1]. Actually, many ICT-enhanced support
tools, categorized as Disaster Management Systems, have been developed to this
A. Melonio • L. Tarantino (*) • T. Di Mascio
Dipartimento di Ingegneria elettrica e dell’informazione, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila,
L’Aquila, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
M. De Marco et al. (eds.), Information Systems: Crossroads for Organization,
Management, Accounting and Engineering, DOI 10.1007/978-3-7908-2789-7_16,
# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
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end [3, 8, 12], mostly aimed at enabling real-time, categorized, geo-referenced data
sharing and based on communication via sms or web portals. Unfortunately, if the
recourse to technology may help technology-erudite people in cutting distances
and re-tying broken linkages, at the same time it may exacerbate the isolation of
vulnerable population groups, as in the case of elderly people, emphasizing the
imbalance derived by grey digital divide. To overcome the reluctance of users of
this kind, often nearly technophobic, it is necessary to conceive easy-to-use tools
tailored to the capabilities of aging users and that can be used with almost no
learning need. While cellular phones, though diffused, suffer from small sized
displays and small buttons, not appropriate for visual and motor impairments
typical of the aging process [4, 5], recent tablets based on touch interfaces promise
to be an appropriate platform on which to base elderly-centered applications that
allow to exploit the potential of networked communication in disaster recovery
phases.
In the rest of the paper we report on a preliminary usability study on iPad conducted in the aftermath of the L’Aquila earthquake with senior people at a risk of
social isolation and with scarce e-literacy: after a brief discussion on the context of
use, we discuss the platform requirements and the experiment results.
2 Context Specific Platform Requirements
The 6.3 quake that hit L’Aquila on April 6, 2009 made unlivable about 50% of
residential buildings and most public buildings, forcing the evacuation of more than
70,000 people. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, evacuees were scattered
over the whole Abruzzo region. Official reports [11] show that more than 2 years
after the quake more than 35,000 people are still displaced: about 20,000 are housed
in more than 20 “new villages” built by the Civil Defense after the quake and
located all around the city territory (along a 100 km closed path), about 1,000 are
hosted in temporary shelters (like barracks and hotels, some still on the coast), and
nearly 15,000 live in autonomously arranged housing solutions. The historical city
center, which previously hosted almost the entire public life, is still inaccessible to
citizens, as well as historical centers of surrounding villages.
The condition of elderly people is particularly heavy: they are often separated
by family members, far from their homes and their original communities, and
with scarce travelling or commuting capabilities. In the series of interviews we
conducted with 15 senior (65–85 years) citizens hosted in temporary shelters and
nursing homes, a recurring concern coming out was the impossibility to “see my
house” or “see what is going on in the city” or to “get news about my former
neighbors”. It was soon clear to us that, beside needs traditionally addressed by
research on assistive technology, ICT-supported ageing and elderly care networks
(see, e.g., [2, 4, 13]), also specific displacement-related needs had to be addressed.
Based on our interviews, we determined functional and non functional requirements
for an elderly-centered application that would result appealing also to “technology
Towards ICT Support for Elderly Displaced People: Looking for Natural Gestures
137
reluctant” users (nearly 50% of interviewees never used cellular phones, let alone
PCs) [6]. In this paper we focus on platform requirements.
In a post-disaster context a specific aspect to be considered is the instability of
the housing conditions, with many evacuees already moved two or three times after
the disaster. This suggests to prefer mobile computing solutions over, e.g., smart
house oriented approaches [2]. Actually, recent mobile devices relying on relatively
large (1000 ) touch screens allow to overcome usability problems typical of cellular
phones, since text and icons can be displayed reasonably large and buttons can in
principle be made scalable [10]. The benefit of touch screen interfaces over indirect
input devices for elderly users has already been demonstrated [7, 15]. Furthermore
studies show that older users may be slower than younger ones in performing
simple gestures, but not necessarily less accurate, and that familiarity of the gesture
can influence the performance [10]. While these studies are conducted mostly at
syntax level, it remains unclear to which extent gestures result natural to use and
effective also at semantic level, that is whether novice older users (in our case often
with low education background) succeed in easily associate gestures to their
function/effect and to remember the association for later re-use. We aim at making
one step further in the research in this area, by providing answers to this open
problem. In the following we report on a preliminary usability study.
3 Evaluation
The main research issue of the study was to evaluate whether customary iPad
gestures are intuitively understood, accepted and adopted by elderly users with no
or scarce e-literacy. In order to do so, we studied how five elderly users interacted
with five different applications (iBook, Skype, Photos, VLC and iScopa), based on
a set of seven simple gestures: Tap, Double Tap, Press, Drag, Pinch, Flick/Swipe,
and Flick/Scroll (as defined in http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1071).
Participants: On a voluntary basis, five novice older users, age 68–83, took part
in the test. None of them ever used a touch device before the experiment; one of
them never used even a cellular phone, one uses a smart phone, while the others
regularly use a first generation mobile phone. Their formal education varies from
illiterate to high educated people. Overall, the sample covers the classes singled
out in the users’ analysis: User A (female, age 71) is dynamic and socially active;
User B (male, 79) lived part of his life is the United States as emigrant involved in a
variety of jobs, from reception desks to driver, used to interact with people and is
familiar with everyday consumer items like cellular phones and video cameras;
User C (male, 83) has always worked as a farmer in a small town and doesn’t have
any familiarity with any type of technology; User D (female, 70) is a housewife
who does not likes to interact with people and with technological artifacts; User E
(male, 68) used to work in a bank and possesses a PC and a smartphone.
Venue and dates: The evaluation took place in users’ living environment
to make them feel comfortable without extra pressure. All users were living in
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temporary accommodations: users A and B in removable wooden houses installed
after the quake (in Villa Sant’Angelo (AQ)), users C and D in a nursing home
(Opera Santa Maria della Pace, Fontecchio (AQ)), and user E in a hotel (on the
Abruzzo coast). The sessions took place in three different days in November 2010.
Procedure: To recruit users in the nursing home we presented the project to the
manager and he introduced us to users C and D. For others users we asked directly
to them whether they wanted to participate. Before performing the tests, users were
met individually to explain ethical considerations concerning consent, withdrawal
and confidentiality, and asked permission to make videos. They were informed
about the expected duration of the session, what the experiment intended to
evaluate, the characteristics of the applications and the order in which these
would be presented, and what they were expected to do. A brief practice session
was then conducted to help participants understand the iPad basic behavior and let
them get familiar with it. Users were reassured that it was not a problem if they did
not know how to perform a task and that they could freely try to touch or ask for
help. When the participants had assured the experimenter that they fully understood
the tasks and that they were ready to proceed, the experiment began. The evaluation
was conducted using a combination of the thinking aloud protocol and the “cognitive walkthrough” inspection method [16]. Four users were filmed with two
cameras, to record both gestures and faces, and to be able to study later, from facial
expressions, user’s emotions related to the interaction (see Fig. 1). One user
preferred not to be filmed.
Tasks: The selected gesture set was tested in five different applications, each
allowing us to evaluate the effectiveness of a subset of gestures, as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
iBook: Tap, Press, Flick/Swip, Drag
Skype: Tap, Flick/Scroll, Drag
Photos: Tap, Double Tap, Flick/Scroll, Flick/Swip, Pinch
VLC (video player): Tap, Drag
iScopa (traditional Italian card game): Tap, Double Tap, Drag.
The use of the same gesture in more than one application allowed us to evaluate
gestures memorability by looking at user’s behavior in successive steps. There were
five consecutive rounds for each participant, one for application. Different users
were assigned different application orders, to avoid biases derived from particular
orderings (see Table 1). For each round and each user, the first task was always a
Fig. 1 Pictures from the
tests: a room of the nursing
home (left) and a user in
trouble (right)
Towards ICT Support for Elderly Displaced People: Looking for Natural Gestures
Table 1 Descriptions of
evaluation sessions
Users
User A
User B
User C
User D
User E
139
Round order
2,1,3,4,5
1,2,3,4
5,1,3
1,5,3,2,4
3,1,2,5,4
Fig. 2 Structure of the iBook evaluation tasks
free interaction with the application during which the user was invited to comment
aloud. Then we tried to enforce a sequence of specific tasks (e.g., “go to next page”
while using iBook) depending on the application they were using. For example,
Fig. 2 shows how we designed the walk through the iBook application (other
evaluation rounds were similarly structured [6]). In many cases the tasks were
performed in a sequence different from what we planned or not performed at
all (users B and C gave up with some applications); in these cases we asked
explanations about the choices the user made or the reason for abandoning the
task. Users were not forced in any actions but when in trouble (unexpected system
behaviors or long time for task execution) or asked help, they got help from us.
Experimental measures: System usability was evaluated by qualitative efficacy
measures, qualitative and quantitative efficiency measures and subjective and
objective satisfaction measures. In particular:
• Efficacy: we studied which gesture is selected to achieve a particular goal, if
gestures are correctly performed, if one or two hands are used for multifinger
gestures, if cursors are used, if numbers and letters are correctly typed, if
visualized items are readable and comprehended;
• Efficiency: we counted the number of gestures performed to reach a goal, and we
considered: the path followed to reach a goal, if the user remembers already
performed gestures, if the user is able to associate a gesture to a goal re-utilizing
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it to reach the same goal later, if the user remembers the position of interactive
items necessary to activate a function;
• Satisfaction: video recorded facial expressions helped us to evaluate whether
the user was relaxed, worried or amused while performing a task (see in Fig. 2 a
user in trouble diverting attention from the device to ask help); direct questions
posed during task execution helped us to evaluate if the user has readability
problems, if s/he appreciates interface properties (e.g., colors, icons, etc.), if s/he
understands the meanings of symbols, icons, buttons and the like.
Results and discussion: Due to space limitation, we report here a general
discussion on the evaluation session and summary data on tasks execution
presented according to a Likert scale (0. . .5), as follows:
•
•
•
•
5 (Accurate): the user accurately identifies objects and perform gestures;
4 (Good): the user completes the task in a short time without problems;
3 (Discreet): the user completes the task with some age-related problems;
2 (Poor): the user has many difficulties in completing the task and often requires
help;
• 1 (none): the user does not understand what to do.
• 0: the user needs help
For each tested application, evaluation results were organized in a summary
table arranged according to task similarity determined on the basis of the gestures a
task requires (see an example in Table 2 for iBook). Then a global summary table
for individual gestures (see Table 3) was derived according to scores obtained by
each gesture in different tasks of different rounds. The scores were weighted to
take into account the influence that individual gestures have on task completion
when the task requires more than one gesture (e.g., for regulating brightness (Task
T.1.4.2) a sequence of Tap and Press is necessary). To assign weights, relative
difficulty of gestures within the task was evaluated on the basis of observation of
users during task executions. Our findings can be summarized as follows:
General aspects: all users instinctively put the tablet in horizontal position;
expected problems related to lack of haptic feedback are found (e.g., users keep
Table 2 Results summary for iBook
Task
Gestures
Users
T.1.1, T.1.5
T.1.2, T.2.2.1
T.1.3
T.1.4.1
T.1.4.2, T.1.4.3
T.1.4.4
T.1.E
T.1.S
A
4
4
3
4
4
3
4
□
Tap
Tap, press
Double tap, flick/swip
Drag, tap
Press and tap for near object
Tap, memorability
Tap, physical button
B
3
2
3
1
3
2
3
□
C
4
2
4
3
3
4
4
D
4
4
4
3
2
1
2
□
E
5
5
5
5
5
4
4
Towards ICT Support for Elderly Displaced People: Looking for Natural Gestures
Table 3 Summary figures
Gestures
Tap
Double tap
Drag
Press
Flick/swip
Flick/scroll
Pinch
Physical button
Support
User A
4
3
3
3
4
4
3
4
□
User B
3
1
2
2
3
3
2
4
□
User C
5
3
4
3
5
4
3
5
User D
3
2
3
3
4
4
3
3
□
141
User D
5
4
5
5
5
5
4
5
on pressing on a specific interface item even if they do not get any system
response); scroll bars and tab bar items are not perceived as interactive objects.
Age specific impairments: users constantly look for a support where to lean the
tablet; they have problems in selecting items with size below 2 cm and in reading
characters below 17 pt.
Gesture performance: expected slowness in performing gestures is confirmed
[10]. Furthermore the following observations can be done:
• Flick/Swipe are friendly for all users;
• Drag is done easily and is quite intuitive;
• Flick/Scroll is sometimes complex to perform and the vertical-scroll, from
bottom to top, is preferred over the horizontal one (e.g. in scrolling photos, the
user sees to the empty spaces on top and bottom of the screen and makes a
movement upwards, whereas horizontal white space is not seen);
• Users have difficulty in Press, and in fast single Taps that often become Press;
• A Double Tap is never used except by mistake (e.g. by double tapping on a
photo, or double tapping on the left side of the page of a book they accidentally
achieve a result, but they did not notice which gesture was done and then they are
not able to redo it to achieve the same result);
• Pinch is never done intuitively but is done only after an example and is always
done with two hands.
Memorability: most users do not remember gestures and interactive actions done
to achieve a specific goal, ask confirmation on whether the present action was
already previously done, and follow different paths in different tasks to achieve the
same goal.
Emotion: while users initially show anxiety and concern in using the tablet, as
they acquire familiarity with the tool they start to appreciate what they can get from
it: they look interested in the book readings (which they do aloud), they are amazed
while interacting with photos, and enjoy with emotional participation the card game
commenting aloud while playing as if the iPad was a human player.
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4 Conclusion and Future Works
We discussed some issues about platform requirements for an ICT application
aimed at supporting elderly people after natural disasters. It is necessary to rely
on intuitive interaction based on direct input languages, preferably on mobile
devices with touch sensible medium sized screens (about 1000 ). In this scenario,
the evaluation study was aimed at verify flaws and deficiencies of existing iPad
applications with respect to gesture use. Though our results are preliminary with
respect to the number of involved users, the overall experiment setting up
contributes to the research area by providing a setting for evaluating gestures at
semantic level. The evaluation results constituted the basis for the design of a
prototype that, in a first round of usability tests at mockup level, proved to be
more elderly-oriented than the traditional iPad applications (errors and numbers of
attempts necessary to reach the goals were lower than in the tests here reported).
Future works will be aimed at the implementation of the system and at more
extensive evaluation experiments.
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