Computers in Human Behavior 27 (2011) 2098–2107

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Computers in Human Behavior

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Providing assistance to older users of dynamic Web content

Darren Lunn ⇑, Simon HarperThe University of Manchester, School of Computer Science, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Available online 6 July 2011

Keywords:AssistanceDynamic contentOlder usersWeb widgets

0747-5632/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.06.004

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 161 275 6239.E-mail addresses: darren.lunn@cs.manchester.ac.u

manchester.ac.uk (S. Harper).

The much vaunted Web 2.0 sees once static pages evolving into hybrid applications. Content that wasonce simple to surf is now becoming increasingly complicated due to the many updating components‘‘dotted’’ throughout the page. In previous studies, we have shown that unlike younger users, older usershave more varied interaction patterns when using dynamic content. In addition, some older users are notaware of what to expect when interacting with dynamic content and show signs of hesitancy when com-pleting tasks. Therefore, a tool was developed to assist older users as they interacted with these kinds ofpages. The tool used simple language and video demonstrations to explain how the dynamic contentoperated and what users could expect to happen as they were interacting with it. We found that: olderusers tend to deny the need for assistance technology even when non-subjective measures suggest theydo use it; technology assists but cannot replace initial human training; Assistance Tools are seen as a‘security blanket’ incase things go wrong; and that the actual needs of users are not that well understoodby those users.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction users were not aware of what to expect when interacting with dy-

The Web is undergoing a profound change from version 1.0–2.0.There is no precise definition of what this new Web is, but it has anemphasis on interaction, community, and the active contributionof users; while at a technical level it is generally accepted thatWeb 2.0 technologies are based around Asynchronous JavaScriptand XML (Ajax) and now HTML 5 technologies. Components, calledwidgets, built from these technologies enable small sections of thepage to be updated by a remote server as opposed to requiring afull page refresh and are extensively used in Web 2.0 sites. Whilethis can provide a richer Web experience for a majority of users,for some the addition of dynamic content can be problematic.For users who are not familiar with Web concepts, or for thosewho require assistive technologies to access Web content, the in-creased complexity can prove to be a hindrance that detracts fromthe benefits that the Web can provide. Indeed, as reviewed in Sec-tion 2, studies have demonstrated that dynamic content attracts auser’s attention more than static content. When users are facedwith differing types of content, they have difficulty in dividingtheir attention between elements to complete tasks effectively.This additional load is problematic for an ageing population ofknowledge workers expected to work longer into old age.

In previous studies, we have shown that unlike younger users,older users have more varied interaction patterns when usingdynamic content (elaborated in Section 3). In addition, some older

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k (D. Lunn), simon.harper@

namic content and have shown signs of hesitancy and uncertaintywhen completing tasks. This was addressed through the develop-ment of a tool, known as the Senior Citizens On The Web 2.0(SCWeb2) Assistance Tool.

Our evaluations, detailed in Section 4, combined eye-trackingwith qualitative elicitation to establish the effectiveness of theAssistance Tool. Participants were asked to complete a series ofWeb 2.0 based tasks, both with and without the tool running. Feed-back from the participants was positive with both praise for theeducational aspect of the tool as well as the look and feel. Theeye-tracking results also revealed that the users could easily asso-ciate the assistance being provided with the content on the screenas participant’s eyes would move between the dynamic contentand the displayed assistance.

As discussed in Section 5, the results gained from the study havehighlighted how some users perceive themselves to be better atusing technology than they actually are even when evidence sug-gests that they actually use the help provided; how technologycan assist users when interacting with dynamic content yet cannotfully replace human intervention when training complete novices;and how involving users in development of applications is neces-sary but can lead to applications that users believe they want,rather than provide functionality they need.

2. Background

When users are faced with multiple types of content, they havedifficulty in dividing their attention between the elements to

D. Lunn, S. Harper / Computers in Human Behavior 27 (2011) 2098–2107 2099

complete tasks effectively (Sàenz, Buracas, & Boynton, 2003). As aresult, a number of techniques have been developed to ascertainhow users interact with Web content and how the various areasof dynamic content can effect a user’s performance.

One approach that has been applied to improve the usability ofWeb pages is eye-tracking. Eye-tracking allows users’ eye move-ments to be captured and analysed to understand how users per-ceive the Web page content. The eye-tracker records the patternof fixations on a page, enabling one to determine those areas thatattract the most fixations, and those that receive little attention(Schiessl, Duda, Thölke, & Fischer, 2003). Eye-tracking can evenbe used to gauge the difficulty of a task that the user is being askedto perform through a measurement of the saccade length (Nakay-ama, Takahashi, & Shimizu, 2002). Pan et al. (2004) found that,with the exception of search tasks, the second page users viewedof a website had a higher saccade rate than the first. As saccaderate is negatively related to task difficulty, this implied that thesecond page required less cognitive effort from the user as theyknew what to expect from the page and where to find key ele-ments. As search results typically have a different style for theirsecond page, this could explain the increased cognitive load.

While eye-tracking can identify the areas of the page that at-tract the users’ attention, it can not determine how users are cop-ing with the multiple areas of content vying for their attention. Oneapproach that can help us understand how a user reacts to eventsis to use galvanic skin response (GSR) measurements. GSR is aphysiological indicator of psychological events that involves mea-suring the drop in resistance to an electrical current passedthrough the skin (Montagu et al., 1966). Electrodes are usuallyplaced on an appropriate area of the hand or foot as sweat glandsin these areas are more influenced by mental stimulus than bytemperature. Resistance is changed due to increased sweat glandactivity, with increased sweat increasing resistance. GSR was com-bined with eye-tracking data by Lunn and Harper (2010c) to suc-cessfully identify when users were feeling high levels of stress byassociating those physiological indicators with the users visualfocus.

2.1. Older users and the web

Older users have a diverse range of experiences and a combina-tion of mild age-related impairments. A degradation of the person’svisual acuity and contrast sensitivity can adversely affect the abil-ity to distinguish between similar colours and can adversely affectthe way that users interact with the Web (Chua, Mitchell, & Cum-ming, 2004) Indeed, Fukuda and Bubb (2003) found that olderusers required longer fixations to find information on the page,especially when the font size was 10pt or less. Increasing font sizeon Web pages facilitated improving elderly users performance(Hartley, 1994).

Movement control also becomes slower and more variable withage and can hinder access to computers (Ketcham & Stelmach,2001, Chapter 13). Chaparro, Bohan, Fernandez, Choi, and Kattel(1999) investigated the use of trackball and mouse movement be-tween older and younger adults. They observed that older userswere much slower at moving the cursor, using both methods, thanthe younger users. It was also interesting to note that whereasyounger users reported fatigue in their wrists and hands duringthe study, older users reported that it was their forearms andwrists that suffered most.

In addition, many older adults suffer from mild cognitiveimpairments, such as a reduced ability to keep information activewhilst processing it, a decrease in the ability to remember to dosomething in the future and a diminishing ability to learn newskills (Czaja & Lee, 2007). Reductions in these memory functionsoccur in an area of intelligence known as fluid memory (Hanson,

2009), which can be characterised by the ability to draw inferencesfrom relationships and patterns and the ability to perform taskswhere experience does not prove to be of benefit (Horn, 1982,Chapter 14). One consequence of this loss of memory is that aspeople age, their ability to recall lists of words from memory dete-riorates (Perlmutter & Mitchell, 1982, Chapter 7). To help usersmake word and language decisions, experiments with priminghave been conducted. Priming involves using cues to inform userswhat content will appear next. For example the category ‘‘animal’’was followed by words related to animals such as ‘‘dog’’ and ‘‘cat’’.By using priming such as this, reaction times were improved whenparticipants were asked to categorise a series of stimuli (Hartley,1992, Chapter 1). Indeed, further studies have demonstrated thatif priming can be used such that participants know where to focustheir attention, there is little difference between older and youngerusers (Rogers & Fisk, 2001, Chapter 11).

Furthermore, older adults have a reduced ability to suppressinformation that is not relevant to their current task (May, Hasher,& Kane, 1999). They are therefore more likely to attend to distract-ing information which can lead to slower task performance (Tullis,2007). Carlson, Hasher, Connelly, and Zacks (1995) investigateddifferences between the distraction levels of older and youngerpeople by inserting random strings of characters within para-graphs of text. They found that the older age group were markedlydisrupted compared to younger people when the distractions werepresent in random locations within the text. However, they notedthat older people can as easily read the front page of a newspaperas younger people, even though newspapers tend to have lots ofinformation and distractions on the front page. They concludedthat the reason for this was that the content for each article (head-ing, text and images) was grouped together in a fixed, predictablelocation to form semantically meaningful groups. Grouping wordstogether that are semantically related can also be of benefit tousers, even when the primer is not explicit, as the semantic relat-edness can act as a priming mechanism (Hartley, 1992, Chapter 1).

2.2. Improving how users interact with web content

It is the combined effect of ageing related impairments that canmake it difficult for older users to use the Web to its full potential.In this case, accessibility guidelines have been developed to assistdesigners with the creation of accessible websites that are bettersuited to the needs of older Web users. These include Webcredi-ble’s Usability for Older Web Users’ Guidelines (Fidgeon, 2006);the Usability Web Design Guidelines for the Elderly (Age 65 andOlder) (Zhao, 2001); and the SilverWeb Guidelines (Zaphiris,Kurniawan, & Ghiawadwala, 2007). While these guidelines existto improve access to Web content, there is still a need for person-alisation of Web pages and applications to improve access to thecontent (Kurniawan, King, Evans, & Blenkhorn, 2006); mainly be-cause designers do not follow these guidelines. Furthermore, eval-uators of these guidelines tend to check their conformance on thebasis that an accessibility criteria has been met or not met. Evalu-ators typically do not take into account the severity that the prob-lem will cause for the user (Brajnik & Lomuscio, 2007; Yesilada,Chen, & Harper, 2008).

As an alternative to Web accessibility guidelines, there havebeen a number of research projects that have investigated provid-ing personalised Web pages and equipment for people with dis-abilities. Methods of providing specialised applications haveimproved access to Web content for older users. Zhao and Tyugu(1998) developed a Web browser that hid the complexity to usersby only providing the necessary functionality. For example, a nov-ice user was presented with a simple browser that contained onlyBack, Forward, Home and Stop buttons. The tool was designed to beadaptable and after the user became familiar with the basic

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buttons, other functionality such as Reload and Bookmark could beadded. Similarly, Zajicek (2000) developed BrookesTalk, a Self-Voicing Browser, that aided older users when accessing the Web.The browser was developed to aid older Web users who had im-paired memory and told them where they were in the currentWeb interaction and what to do next. The design principles ofthe browser were to reduce the use of fluid memory, which isthe part of memory that reduces more significantly with age, andsupport the development of strategies that would become residentin crystalline memory, which is less effected with age (Zajicek &Hall, 2000).

While creating simplified versions of Web applications haveshown to be useful, they have been met with resistance withinthe community. During requirements gathering for a Web pageadaptation tool, Hanson and Richards (2005) found that userstended to prefer a standard browser with the accessibility transfor-mations added rather than a specialised browser offering only alimited set of features because that marked them as being disabled.Kim, Pan, and McGrath (2005) found a similar result when exper-imenting with customised user interfaces for different groups. In-deed, the elderly group indicated that they did not want to beseen as separate from other user groups.

Kurniawan et al. (2006) found that older users could learn touse various applications with a high rate of success and thereforedid not necessarily require specialised assistive technologies. How-ever, users much preferred using Web pages where the default CSShad been overridden with a style better suited to the needs of olderusers. This was because overriding the existing style with a newstyle did not require specialised equipment yet allowed the usersto interact with the content more easily. Likewise Hanson (2004)modified Internet Explorer to support senior access. They madefunctionality that existed within the browser, such as text magni-fication and the size of the browser controls, more prominent sothat the users could easily access the accessibility options andmake the necessary changes. This allowed users to use the stan-dard Internet Explorer as other people but with the content dis-played using settings that better suited their needs.

While the tools and guidelines discussed previously have dem-onstrated the needs of elderly Web users and methods of improv-ing access to Web content for those users, the focus has been onstatic Web documents. Although the potential challenges facedby older users from the Web 2.0 have been highlighted by Chad-wick-Dias, Bergel, and Tullis (2007), Zajicek (2007), and Lunn andHarper (2010c), there has been little research into tools and tech-niques that support older users as they interact with this kind ofcontent.

Web Browser

Web Page

User

Widget Detection

Widget Catalogue

Service

1 2

Fig. 1. The architecture of the SCWeb2 Browser extension. At r the widgetscontained within the page are detected. At s help is provided to the user whenrequested.

3. SCWeb2 Assistance Tool

In our previous studies there were signs from some older usersof hesitancy and uncertainty when completing Web 2.0 basedtasks (Lunn & Harper, 2010c). While some users in the study werecomfortable when interacting with Web 2.0 content, there wereothers who were not aware of what to expect; this was especiallythe case with auto-suggest lists (ASL), carousels/slide-shows, andtabs (Lunn & Harper, 2009; Lunn, Yesilada, & Harper, 2009). There-fore informing users of what type of content is on the page andhow this content operates will be of benefit to some members ofthe older age groups. However, unlike the younger group, the olderage groups had a more varied interaction pattern. This variance isbecause their interaction patterns did not arise due to the expecta-tion (or not) of widgets but due to a combination of more subtlefactors (Fairweather, 2008; Lunn & Harper, 2009): (1) familiaritywith computers and the Web; (2) expectation of certain function-ality; (3) level of cautiousness; (4) desire to not make ‘mistakes’;

and finally (5) varying ability. Therefore one should not assumethat one size fits all, and hence this is a key principle of theSCWeb2 Assistance Tool. Further, to avoid stigma our tool wasimplemented as an extension to the Google Chrome Web Browserallowing older users to feel as though they were not disabled orneeded special technologies.

3.1. Architecture

The SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was developed using a componentbased architecture that pulled together existing JavaScript compo-nents and Web Services, a diagram of which can be seen in Fig. 1.The browser acted as a bridge between the components and pro-vided an interface that allowed users to interact with the tool.

3.1.1. Widget detection services (indicated as r in Fig. 1)As the page loaded, the browser called this service to establish if

the page contained any dynamic content. The method of detectingdynamic content was based upon identifying ‘‘Tell Signs’’ withinthe page. These signs are characteristics that are shared amongstmany widgets but when found in specific combinations identifythe type of widget present. Further details of how the Tell SignAlgorithm operates can be found in (Chen & Harper, 2009).

When the service returned the list of widgets that had beendetected on the page, the browser called the Widget Catalogue Ser-vice to check that the widgets found existed within the catalogue.Further details of this service are provided in Section 3.1.2. The callto the Catalogue Service was to ensure that when users were pre-sented with a list of found widgets, help was available. We hypoth-esise that users of the Tool are frequently hesitant about using theWeb, hence the need for the tool. To offer assistance and then pro-vide a message stating ‘‘assistance for the given content is notavailable’’ would further undermine their confidence. While theextra service call degraded performance slightly, the benefits tothe user offset the small loss of performance.

3.1.2. Widget catalogue service (indicated as s in Fig. 1)If widgets had been detected, the user was given the opportu-

nity to ask for assistance. The interface for how this was achievedis described further in Section 3.2. On request, the browser exten-sion called the Catalogue Service with the name of the widget. Thecatalogue is a Web Service that contains a database of Web 2.0Widgets in addition to a description of what the widget does, aformal definition of the widget, and a list of example media thatcan assist users in understanding how to interact with the given

Fig. 2. XML format returned by calling the Widget Catalogue Web Service. The WebService can be found at http://wel.cs.manchester.ac.uk/tools/services/widget-catalogue.

Table 1Demographics of the participants that took part in the design session.

# Sex Age Occupation Browser Web use

P1 Male 56 Tenant liaison officer Firefox WeeklyP2 Female 55 Secretary Internet explorer DailyP3 Male 59 Part-time librarian Safari DailyP4 Female 56 Civil servant Internet explorer Daily

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content. Fig. 2 shows the XML that is returned when the service iscalled. This is hidden from the user and only used by the tool toprovide appropriate assistance. The variables in uppercase are de-fined as:

XX The ID of the Widget in the database. There is only one IDvalue per widget entry. If no widget is found an ID value of 0is returned.WIDGET The full name of the Widget. There is only one <name>value per widget entry. If no widget is found a value of NULL isreturned.ONTOLOGY CLASS The class name used in the Widget Ontology.There is only one <class-name> value per widget entry. If nowidget is found a value of NULL is returned.ONTOLOGY URL The URL complete with Class Name of the wid-get. There is only one <formal-definition> value per widgetentry. If no widget is found a value of NULL is returned.DESCRIPTION An informal, human readable description of thewidget. There is only one <description> value per widgetentry. If no widget is found a value of NULL is returned.FORMAT The format of any demonstration media associatedwith this widget, for example flash video. If no media is associ-ated with the widget, then the <example> element is notreturned. If there are multiple medias associated with the wid-get, then one <example> element will be returned containingmultiple <media> elements.MEDIA URL The URL of any demonstration media associatedwith this widget, for example a YouTube video URL. If no mediais associated with the widget, then the <example> tag is notreturned. If there are multiple medias associated with the wid-get, then one <example> element will be returned containingmultiple <media> elements.

3.2. Interface

The interface was developed using a prototype refinementmethod. An initial design was developed and potential users ofthe tool were consulted. The aim was to allow people to gain a feelfor the tool and its functionality and provide comments and sug-gestions that could improve the interface before formal evaluationscould be conducted. A full description of the prototype interfaceand how it was refined through participant feedback can be foundin Lunn and Harper (2010a).

Participants were recruited from people who were familiar withthe lab and had expressed interest in taking part in small studies.In total four participants (Male = 2,Female = 2) took part in thestudy, with an age range of 55–59. Demographics of the partici-pants can be found in Table 1. The sessions lasted around 20 minand no monetary award was given to the participants as they

had all expressed an interest in technology and the Web and werehappy to offer their opinions.

There were no formal tasks set for the feedback sessions. Partic-ipants could ask questions about the extension at any point and ifthey became confused, then assistance was provided. The evalua-tors also encouraged the participants to talk about what they weredoing and their opinions of the tool as the session progressed. Thepurpose of the session was to identify areas that could be improvedin the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool and not formally evaluate the tool’sfunctionality. Therefore the sessions had an informal chatty feelabout them to try and elicit opinions and comments.

Fig. 3 shows the interface of the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool thatarose from the participatory feedback sessions. Upon detectingwidgets, an icon designed as an ‘‘information’’ icon was presentedto the user to indicate that widgets had been found and to act as aprimer to remind users that information was available. In Fig. 3 theinformation icon, indicated as r, has been magnified for clarity. Byusing an icon in this manner, users could request assistance if theyrequired it by pressing the button. If they did not require assis-tance, then they could ignore the button and browse the page intheir usual manner. In addition, the icon appeared to be part ofthe browser itself and therefore did not make the browser look likea specialist application for people who need help.

When the user clicked on the ‘‘information’’ icon a side-panelappeared that displayed a list of the widgets that were presenton the page and for which help was available. This is indicated asr in Fig. 3, which shows the result of asking for help about carou-sels. Clicking on the ‘‘Carousel’’ button revealed a simple descrip-tion of what a Carousel was as well as providing a video of howthe carousel widget operated. The video had audio commentaryto ensure that the video was clear and to provide a step-by-stepguide of how to operate the widget. As the video was being played,the widget on the page was highlighted in a pink box. This was toensure that users were aware of what part of the page was beingdiscussed in the demonstration video. While widgets have similarfunctionality, they may have a sightly different appearance. The vi-deo was designed to be as generic as possible and the pink high-light drew the users’ attention to the widget on the page thatwas being talked about. This allowed the widget to be easily found,especially if it did not exactly match the widget shown in the vi-deo. The language used was designed to be as simple as possible,so that jargon and technical terms were avoided and therefore bet-ter suited to those who were less technically minded (Kurniawan &Zaphiris, 2005). The blue and pink colour scheme was designed tocreate maximum contrast and the use of a 12pt Helvetica font waschosen to aid legibility.

4. Evaluation

To evaluate the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool a study similar to thatof our previous work (Lunn & Harper, 2010c) was conducted butwith the participants able to use the tool if they required it. There-fore the tasks, with the exception of the training pages, were thesame as that study and were designed to understand how peopleperceived the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool and identify if the tool couldassist participants when interacting with dynamic content.

Fig. 3. The interface of the SCWeb2 tool. The icon to activate the tool at r has been magnified for clarity.

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4.1. Evaluation setup

In this article we present the results of two studies. The firststudy was conducted with four participants. During this studythe original design used in Lunn and Harper (2010c) was emulatedas closely as possible. However it became apparent that for thegroup of users who were taking part there were too many pagesand that the GSR machine was not appropriate. The participantswere not overly familiar with the concepts that were being inves-tigated and were apprehensive about taking part. The participantshad difficulty using the mouse as the straps became a hinderance.Furthermore, some participants had only recently become familiarwith using the Web and the addition of the finger straps causedsome hesitation that was felt would adversely effect the user’s atti-tude towards computers after the study had been completed. Wedid not want to damage any confidence that the participant hadbuilt up with regards to computer usage and so the GSR elementwas removed for the second study. Instead, participants wereencouraged to talk about difficulties they found when performingthe tasks with and without the SCWeb2 Assistance tool. The useof the eye-tracker was also used to corroborate what participantswere saying as they performed the tasks. These changes were min-or and so the results from both studies are included.

4.1.1. ParticipantsFor the first study four (Male = 1,Female = 3) participants took

part in the study, with an age range of 71–84. For the second study

four (Male = 1,Female = 3) participants took part in the study, withan age range of 55–80. In total eight (Male = 2,Female = 6) partici-pants took part in the studies, with an age range of 55–84. Demo-graphics of the participants, in addition to their Web usage, isprovided in Table 2.

Participants from both groups were recruited from Age ConcernManchester. An event was held at the Crossacres Day Centre wherepeople who were interested in computers or research could comealong and take part in the study. Participants who took part in thestudies were given a choice of confectionary for their time and ef-forts. Most participants used the Web, although there was a rangeof skills. Some participants used the Web rarely whilst others, whohad access to their own computers, used the Web daily. While theparticipants were familiar with Web concepts, some were notfamiliar with some of the pages used in the tasks. However, thetasks were designed so that provided users were familiar withWeb concepts, such as entering text into a text-entry box, theywould be able to complete the tasks; none of the participantshad any significant disabilities.

4.1.2. EquipmentParticipants used a desktop PC running Microsoft Windows XP

that was attached to a 17’’ monitor with a built in TOBII 1750eye-tracker. In the first study, the aim was for participants’ fingersto be attached to a MindWalker 3 GSR meter using Velcro fingerstraps. However, the GSR device was not used in the second study.

Table 2Demographics of the participants that took part in the evaluations.

# Sex Age Occupation Computer Computer use Web use

(a) First StudyP1 F 81 Retired Age concern 2nd time NeverP2 F 80 Carer Own Weekly (5th week) MonthlyP3 F 71 Retired Age concern Weekly (8th week) WeeklyP4 M 84 Retired Own Daily Weekly

(b) Second StudyP5 M 70 Retired Own Weekly MonthlyP6 F 57 Unemployed Age concern Occasionally OccasionallyP7 F 55 Unemployed/volunteer Own Daily DailyP8 F 80 Retired Own Daily Daily

D. Lunn, S. Harper / Computers in Human Behavior 27 (2011) 2098–2107 2103

Participants used the Google Chrome Web Browser that had theSCWeb2 Assistance Tool running as an extension.

4.1.3. TasksThe tasks investigated how older users interacted with dynamic

Web content by asking people to complete short directed tasks. Inthe second study there were four tasks, with each task designed toprompt interaction with an element that contained dynamic infor-mation. The two ‘‘suggest’’ tasks required users to look for specificinformation and provided an ASL that dynamically appeared asparticipants typed in order to assist users with achieving their goal.The two ‘‘portal’’ tasks were more vague in order to allow users tointeract with the page more naturally. Users were asked to identifya news story that they found of interest, which was more akin tobrowsing, rather than being asked to locate specific information.

The first study also included two ‘‘search’’ tasks that were iden-tical to the ‘‘suggest’’ tasks but with the ASL disabled. These twotasks were designed to see if the absence of ASLs negatively af-fected the user’s stress level when compared to the equivalent‘‘suggest’’ tasks. However, as discussed previously, the participantswere not suited to the use of GSR and so no GSR measurementswere being taken. In addition, as the pages had no dynamic con-tent, the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was not activated, renderingthese search tasks unnecessary. The ‘‘search’’ tasks are included

Table 3Web pages used in the evaluations and the tasks participants were asked to complete.

Web page Task

Google suggest Search for the University of Manches

Google search (first study only) Search for the University of Manches

National rail suggest Search for a train for one person from

National rail search (first study only) Search for a train for one person from

iGoogle Take a look at the news stories in thinterested in reading any of these fu

Yahoo! Take a look at the news, sports or eninterested in reading any of these fu

Question (purpose) Interpreted result (see Section 4.2)Do users find the presence – or absence – of

ASLs useful or a hindrance?Mostly older users focused on the kethey glanced up they became worriethe tool and the explanation of ASL cuseful

Do users find the presence – or absence – ofmultiple ASLs, with limited suggestions,useful or a hindrance?

Once the older user was using our toregard to multiple ASLs. However, mof forms (our tool did not address foform itself was a problem

Are users distracted by multiple areas ofdynamic content?

After exposure to the tool, limited dythe tool often not used further. As ththe tool became more used and was

here for completeness of the designs of the two studies, but theanalysis and results provided in Section 4.2 make no reference tothem.

The pages used in the study can be found in Table 3. For alltasks, interaction was documented with the live website as thiswas necessary for the dynamic features to function. For all thepages, the front page was cached to a local server to allow the dy-namic content to be enabled or disabled as the task required. How-ever the search results and ASLs were pulled from the live website.

4.1.4. ProcedureParticipants read the information sheet and the nature of the

study was explained to them by the evaluator. Participants startedthe experiment on an index page that provided links to the practicepages and the tasks. During the practice session users began atraining session with members of the evaluation team. The trainingsession allowed users to become familiar with the tool and under-stand how it could help them to become more comfortable withdynamic content. After the training session participants took abreak for at least 20 min where refreshments were served.

The task pages were split into two groups. Group A had the toolactivated, allowing users to make use of what they had learnt inthe training session as they completed the tasks. Group B pageshad the tool disabled, so that even when dynamic content was

Purpose

ter Do users find the presence of ASLs usefulor a hindrance?

ter Do users find the absence of ASLs usefulor a hindrance?

Manchester to London Do users find the presence of multipleASLs, with limited suggestions, useful ora hindrance?

Manchester to London Do users find the absence of multipleASLs, with limited suggestions, useful ora hindrance?

e CNN.com box. Would you berther?

Are users distracted by multiple areas ofdynamic content?

tertainment stories. Would you berther?

Are users distracted by multiple areas ofdynamic content?

yboard when typing not the screen, ifd about the ASL list. After exposure toontained within it, users found ASL

ol they became more relaxed withultiple ASLs are usually found as partsrms) and it became obvious that the

namic content was handled easily withe dynamic content increased howeverrated more useful

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present, the tool was not available for use by the participants. Par-ticipants were assigned a number from 1 . . . n, where n was the to-tal number of participants taking part in the study. Participantsassigned an odd number (1,3, . . .) completed Group A tasks first fol-lowed by Group B tasks. Participants assigned an even number(2,4, . . .) completed Group B tasks first followed by Group A tasks.

Participants visited the websites in different orders. When theyhad completed a task, they then performed the task on the equiv-alent page on the group that they had not yet performed the taskon. For example, if a participant was asked to complete the Googletask on Group A, upon completion they were asked to complete theGoogle task on Group B. After a task was completed participantswere encouraged to talk about how they felt and which versionthey found more useful in order for us to gain some insight intothe operation and functionality of the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool.

Not all the pages were completed by the participants. Some par-ticipants were becoming visibly tired and frustrated and one userwas having difficulty using the keyboard because they had stiffhands. Therefore the evaluation stopped when the tasks werebecoming too taxing for the participants. After the participanthad completed the tasks, they were asked to complete a shortdemographic and experiential questionnaire (see Tables 1 and 2);while tempting to try and elicit quantitative feedback (by meansof say ‘Likert’ style questions) we felt that qualitative spoken feed-back – recorded as the experiment took place – meant that theusers opinions where more fresh and the interaction seemed morenatural. A complete description of the equipment used includingscreenshots of the pages used in the tasks can be found in Lunnand Harper (2010b).

4.2. Results

The wide range of ages, abilities, and skills allowed us to gaugethe extent of the problems that users can face when interactingwith Web 2.0 rather than create a generalisation of how all olderusers interact with dynamic content. As a result this gave us threekey insights into how users perceive and make use of assistancetechnology. The first is that some users perceive themselves tobe better at using technology than they actually are and will notacknowledge that they find help useful, even when evidence sug-gests that they do. Secondly, while technology can assist userswhen interacting with new technology, it cannot replace humanintervention when training complete novices. Finally, while involv-ing users throughout development of applications is essential,designers must also ensure that they provide users with function-ality that they need, in a manner that entices them, rather than cre-ating something that users believe they want.

4.2.1. Perception of the SCWeb2 Assistance ToolThe reception received for both the study conducted at Crossa-

cres and the tool in general was positive. Indeed, after both the firstand the second study had taken place, unprompted feedback sug-gested the tool was well received by the people who took part whopromptly then went onto discuss it with other members of theircommunity.

Feedback from the participants themselves was generally posi-tive for a variety of reasons. Some participants enjoyed the educa-tional aspect of the tool. For example P8 thought that the tool was‘‘very useful’’. It teaches you how to go from one [the video] to theother’’. P5, having completed a task with and without the tool pres-ent, remarked that: ‘‘the second [task] was easier. [the tool] helpedme you see. I couldn’t do this on my own’’. Such comments suggestthat the participants felt that the demonstration videos were usefuland could help them as they interacted with Web 2.0 content.

In addition to the comments on the perceived usefulness of thetool as a teaching aid, there were also positive comments about the

look and feel. P3 stated several times, both during and after thestudy, that they ‘‘really like the colours, especially the pink’’. Whilethe aesthetic quality can sometimes be overlooked, it can be animportant aspect of any tool. If participants perceive somethingto be well designed, or created in a manner that they like, then theywill approach the tool in a more positive manner and gain morebenefit from the actual functionality.

While a majority of the participants felt that the tool was goodand useful, there were two participants, P6 and P7, who felt thatthe tool did not provide any benefit. P6 stated that‘‘it [the tool]didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t know’’. This quote was interest-ing because it occurred after the participant had completed theiGoogle tasks. The first iGoogle task was with the tool deactivated.As described in Table 3, the task was to take a look at the news sto-ries in the CNN.com box to see if users noticed, and interactedwith, the expansion boxes. During the first attempt at this task,P6 ignored the expansion boxes. During the second attempt, whenthe tool was active, P6 was watching the Expansion Box Demon-stration Video and in surprise said ‘‘What cross?’’ immediately fol-lowed by ‘‘Oh there’’ when they noticed the expansion box on theCNN news stories. After the tasks were completed and the evalua-tor was eliciting information from the participant, it was then thatthey stated that the tool did not tell them anything that they al-ready knew.

P7 felt that the tool was ‘‘good but I’m not sure that it is reallyneeded’’. It is interesting to note that both P6 and P7 were at thethe lower age range of the demographic that Age Concern providesservices for (57 and 55 respectively) and possibly felt that theywere too young to receive the type of assistance that was beingprovided by the tool. They were also the two most competent com-puter users and so could also have felt that they were good enoughto complete the tasks without the need for any help. Indeed P7completed all the task relatively quickly and did not need assis-tance. Such skills may have led them to believe that all peoplecould use the Web as easily as they could, therefore biasing theirjudgement towards the tool not being needed for anybody.

4.2.2. Assistance provided by the SCWeb2 Assistance ToolThe assistance provided by the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was

met with mixed results. The tool did seem to assist some users,especially when the dynamic content that users were interactingwith was constrained. As discussed previously, P6 ignored theexpansion boxes during their first attempt at the iGoogle taskbut during the second attempt, when the SCWeb2 Assistance Toolwas active, P6 learnt how to use the expansion box feature. Simi-larly P8 used the expansion box on the iGoogle page when theycould watch the video but on the second attempt at the task whenthe tool was not active they did not make use of the expansion boxfeatures. One can then therefore postulate that the tool acted as amemory aid for participants.

Similarly the ASL assistance provided by the SCWeb2 AssistanceTool appeared to have some benefits in allowing users to interactwith the page more easily. During the Google Suggest task, P5 con-ducted the Group A task first, with the tool enabled, followed bythe Group B task where the tool was disabled. During the playingof the training videos, P5 looked between the video being playedand the Google ASL that was highlighted in pink. The user then com-pleted the task by typing in ‘‘university’’ and then looking throughthe ASL suggestions to identify ‘‘University of Manchester’’. Therewere additional issues with this task, such as difficulty clicking themouse button without causing slippage, but the essence of the toolseemed to have aided the participant in understanding how theASL worked and how to interact with it. During the second GoogleSuggest task, when the tool was disabled, the participant again typedat the keyboard and selected ‘‘University of Manchester’’ from thelist. However, it was interesting to note that the eye-tracking

D. Lunn, S. Harper / Computers in Human Behavior 27 (2011) 2098–2107 2105

detected instances of P5 looking between the Google ASL and thearea where the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool side panel would appearat the side of the browser. One can assume that the participantwas looking for the tool as a reassurance as they made use of theASL, even though they managed to complete the task in a satisfac-tory manner.

For the Yahoo! tasks, both P5 and P7 performed Group A tasks,which was with the tool enabled, followed by the Group B tasks.Both participants repeatedly flicked their eyes between the dem-onstration video being played and the pink highlighted box inthe content of the page. During the Group A task P5 looked atthe tabs on the news stories box, although did not make use ofthem, yet for the Group B task ignored the tabs and read out a storythat was already present. P7 on the other hand did make use of thetabs for both Group A and Group B tasks, although it should benoted that during the questionnaire after the tasks had been com-pleted P7 stated that they made use of Yahoo! on a daily basis andso could have already been familiar with the functionality. How-ever, during the Group A task, P7 did click on the ‘‘news’’ tab threetimes to try and get the content to change. The reason why it didnot change was because the news tab was already showing. A per-son highly familiar with the functionality may have known that nochange in content indicated that the tab was already displayed.

An interesting aspect of the pages where the SCWeb2 Assis-tance Tool was present was that users’ eyes constantly flicked be-tween the demonstration video and the dynamic content presenton the page. As described previously, the page’s dynamic contentwas highlighted in a pink colour to distinguish it from the rest ofthe content on the page and to establish a connection betweenthe content and the description in the side panel. This had the de-sired effect as the participant’s eyes would move between the twoas the videos were playing. In addition, the video was used pre-dominantly more by the participants to understand how to usethe dynamic content than the textual description that accompa-nied the video in the side panel. All the participants of the firststudy and all but P8 in the second study ignored the text and con-centrated on the video. Further investigation is required into whythis may be the case but it could be that participants found the vi-deo more interesting than the text or that the visual cues accompa-nied by the audio descriptions were more clear than the text inexplaining how to use the content.

While on face value the video demonstrations appeared to be astrength of the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool, they also acted as a weak-ness. The videos were designed to be as generic as possible, and in-deed matched up with the dynamic content used on the trainingpages. However, when the content changed, the videos remainedthe same as they were designed to be a memory aid; this confusedsome of the users.

A further weakness, that is also related to the training videos,was that because the videos were designed to be as generic as pos-sible, on busy complex sites they did not appear to have the de-sired effect. As we have discussed, P5 successfully completed theGoogle Suggest tasks. One can assume that this was because Goo-gle’s ASL was on a relatively simple page and not too different fromthe example video that was part of the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool.The National Rail Enquiries task had a large number of ASLs thatrepresented ‘‘to’’, ‘‘from’’, and ‘‘via’’ when selecting train routes.P5 became confused by the additional complexity. Once the ASLshad appeared, P5 was comfortable selecting a station from the listprovided, but they were unsure as to which box to click in. Duringboth the Group A and Group B versions of the page, P5 talkedthrough the process as though looking for reassurance. For exam-ple ‘‘so I’ve got to type in Manchester and London have I?. . . Type inthere?. . . Need to click on that now yeah?’’. The process of usingthe ASLs seemed fine to the participant, but the process of selectingwhich box to enter text into was not. Towards the end of the task,

P5 stated ‘‘I’m all over the place with this one’’ and was becomingmore frustrated. P2 also had similar issues with not being awareof which box to type into. During the Group A National Rail Suggesttask, they typed ‘‘Manchester’’ and selected a station from the dropdown list. They then typed ‘‘London’’ in the same box as Manches-ter (in essence stating that they were going from ‘‘ManchesterLon-don’’) and had to be guided in correcting the mistake. The SCWeb2Assistance Tool could not help with the tasks as it was designed togive generic support for simple ASLs, not provide guidance in usingcomplex websites with competing choices of search boxes.

4.2.3. Additional observationsIn addition to the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool, a number of other

issues arose that affected the way that participants interacted withthe content, the study, and the tool itself. P1, P2, P3, and P7 were allreluctant to interact with the dynamic content and had to beprompted by the evaluator. One suspects that it was a lack of con-fidence. P1 and P2 had not been using the computer for a very longtime (2 and 5 weeks respectively) and P7 commented throughoutthe tasks that ‘‘it’s ages since I used a computer. Once I used to bequite good but it’s so long ago since I done [sic] it’’. Taking part in astudy with an evaluator present may have been overwhelming.Also, those three participants were keen to discuss the work andthe study with the evaluator after the session had finished, sug-gesting that they were interested in giving their opinions and find-ing out more.

There were a number of issues with users not being able tomake use of the mouse accurately. P1 and P4 had issues withmouse movement and required help from the evaluator to clickthe links that began the task pages. P5 had trouble hitting the iconthat activated the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool. During the Google Sug-gest task it took three attempts to hit the icon to activate the assis-tance. After the study had been completed P5 commented that theicon was ‘‘a bit too small’’.

Similar to the mouse problems, a number of users made spellingerrors when entering search terms. P6 would sometimes keep thekey pressed for too long when entering text in the search box, forexample, when typing ‘‘manchester’’ in the Google Suggest taskthey entered ‘‘mannnchester’’. P1 and P4 also made a number oftyping errors but this may have been related to their lack of key-board skills. P1 and P2 asked for assistance when entering thewords into the search boxes. Again a reason for this is not immedi-ately clear. One possibility is that they were unable to spell ‘‘Uni-versity’’ or ‘‘Manchester’’ however both were verbally articulate.It seems the tool provides assurance for the overall action of select-ing items from the ASL or the expansion box, but does not providethe low-level support of reassuring participants that what they arecurrently doing, such as typing a word or phrase, is fine and noth-ing to be concerned about.

While a number of these issues, such as mouse and keyboardabilities, are not directly associated with the assistance that theSCWeb2 Assistance Tool provides, they do indirectly affect howpeople perceive, operate, and make use of the tool. Indeed, a lackof confidence in using these basic computer skills will have conse-quences for people using more complex content such as tab boxesand ASLs.

5. Discussion

While the results from the combined eye-tracking and qualita-tive elicitation studies were positive and encouraging, there were anumber of issues that became apparent that require further analy-sis and research. As discussed previously, it was observed thatusers’ eyes constantly flicked between the demonstration videoand the dynamic content present on the page. The video was

2106 D. Lunn, S. Harper / Computers in Human Behavior 27 (2011) 2098–2107

predominantly used to understand how to use the dynamic con-tent than the textual description that accompanied the video inthe side panel. This could be because the participants found the vi-deo more interesting than the text or that the visual cues accompa-nied by the audio descriptions were clearer.

The videos themselves were designed to be as generic as possi-ble, and indeed matched up with the dynamic content used on thetraining pages. However, when the content changed, the videos re-mained the same, thereby acting as a memory aid. This confusedsome of the users as the content of the widgets in the videos didnot match the content of the widgets on the website. One solutionmay be to crowdsource the training content in a similar way to theAccessibility Commons project, developed by Kawanaka et al.(2008). In a similar manner, the videos in the database that drivesthe SCWeb2 Assistance Tool could be extended by a community ofusers. Training videos that lead users through complex sites couldbe created to further assist users on pages that are known to causeproblems, such as National Rail Enquiries. Such an approach maybe more fruitful than the current generic media that is currentlyprovided.

Based on findings from our previous studies (Lunn & Harper,2010c), the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was developed to provideassistance only when users required it. However, the situation ismore complex than we initially envisaged. For absolute beginners,there appears to be a need for human presence to guide and trainthem through the process of not only using the Web, but also usingthe tool. Some of the users in the study were constantly seekingreassurance from the evaluators about what they were doing, evenwhen the tool was present; however, one could speculate that theremoval of the evaluator would eliminate this need for assurance.Furthermore, absolute beginners, needed to be shown how to em-ploy basic keyboard and mouse skills. For such users the AssistanceTool could compliment human training sessions rather than re-place them. In particular, when the trainer was no longer present,users would still have the video demonstrations to act as safetynet. Therefore, one can argue that the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool ismore useful for those who have some skills and can use the toolas a ‘‘security blanket’’. For example, the iGoogle task involvedlooking at the news stories in the CNN.com box to see if users no-ticed, and interacted with, the expansion boxes. During the first at-tempted at this task, P6 ignored the expansion boxes. During thesecond attempt, when the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was active, P6was watching the Expansion Box Demonstration Video and wassurprised when they noticed the expansion box on the CNN newsstories.

Finally, there may be a social aspect to learning to use comput-ers, with some participants spending more time chatting after thestudy than it took them to complete study; this valuable socialengagement should not be ignored.

6. Conclusion

Our research has helped to further solidify ongoing work in thearea – which suggests that experience and knowledge are betterdifferentiators of barriers to Web interaction than is age. In addi-tion, we have contributed to a better understanding of the barriers– experienced by older people – to efficient Web interaction and,by the use of our assistive advisor, enabled some of these barriersto be removed. Indeed, we find that video works better for learn-ability than text, however video is sometimes taken too literally– as opposed to an example case, which is better understood con-veyed by text. In addition, we find that this kind of assistance isused by older people to reduce hesitation, and that when removed,people still look (literally) for assistance. Further, that there may bea mental barrier to using the tool – as participants of the first study

generally ignored it unless they were invited to use it – in keepingwith work (Novick, Andrade, Bean, & Elizalde, 2008) which sug-gests that at best online help is only used 25% of the time in normalworking conditions.

The evaluation of our tool involved a mixture of both qualitativemethods whereby participants were encouraged to talk about anddiscuss the tool, and more quantitative methods, such as the use ofeye-tracking, to identify what exactly users were doing. The eye-tracking data revealed that users could relate the demonstrationvideos to the dynamic content being highlighted and that userswould try things on the page when the demo was present. Whilethe assistance provided by the SCWeb2 Assistance Tool was foundto benefit users, its presentation to those users has some issues, de-spite the fact that the focus groups, and indeed the evaluation par-ticipants, stated that it was good. While a redesign of the SCWeb2interface is therefore necessary, there are more fundamental issuesto be addressed.

Involving users throughout the analysis, design, development,and evaluation phases of applications is essential, yet effort shouldbe focused on developing methods to provide users with function-ality that they need, in a manner that entices them, rather than cre-ating something that users believe they want. As noted by Dix(2010), designing for all may result in an application that is ‘‘goodenough’’ but with users wanting more personal choice, we shouldfocus designs that are ‘‘best for some’’. While this may mean theapplication is not suited to some users, it will allow the applicationto provide more benefit to those who do use it.

Acknowledgements

SCWeb2: Senior Citizens On The Web 2.0 is funded by TheLeverhulme Trust, research Grant reference no: F/00 120/BL.

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