Technical people tend to believe that all users learn the same way that they do. They try a few things, see if they work, try something else, and hopefully sometime soon figure it out; if they don’t figure it out, they search the Internet for a usable solution.

I was recently part of a team that was charged with designing and developing a smartphone graphical user interface (GUI) that would be used by a large, highly diverse group of users. During our first trials, we soon discovered that user differences had significant implications for our design choices. Due to screen size limitations, we attempted to provide affordances for user comprehension with the appropriate use of media for presenting content. Because text content takes up too much space and is not engaging, we needed to provide visual representations of textual information. Although we used what we believed were common or popular icons to convey meaning and represent interactions, many of our users were totally confused. A number of users needed help understanding how to use many portions of our interface. At this point, I came across this interesting paper, which presents the results of an extensive study on how older adults learn to use mobile devices.

The authors “conducted two complementary studies: a survey study with 131 respondents from three age groups (20-49, 50-64, 65+) and an in-depth field study with [six] older adults aged 50+.” The studies explored “how older adults learn to use mobile devices, their preferences and barriers, in order to find new ways to support them in their learning process.” In this paper, the authors present their results--“the preference for trial-and-error decreases with age, and while over half of older respondents and participants preferred using the instruction manual, many reported difficulties using it”--and discuss the design implications of their findings.

It is truly interesting that the authors included younger adults in their survey to help ground the data from the older adults and to uncover age-related differences.

Overall, this is an interesting read for anyone designing smartphone GUIs. It has particular value for those of us charged with the development of software, reminding us of the importance of user manuals and thorough usage instructions.