A usability study on human-computer interface for middle-aged learners

Usability is considered to be inherent in human-computer interface because it expresses the relationship between end users and computer applications. In this paper, we conducted a study to examine the usability of human-computer interface for middle-aged learners in Taiwan. There are two phases contained in the study: (1) an elementary computer-training task, and (2) a usability analysis of human-computer interface. Making use of a questionnaire survey, correlation analysis, and the grey relational model, some user characteristics and learning behavior were derived. For example, regarding middle-aged learners, the usability of present mouse and monitor devices is preferable to that of the keyboard device and a Windows-based software interface. Educational level is the major factor influencing middle-aged learners' use of computer interfaces. To unemployed middle-aged learners, more males than females were found to exhibit the phenomenon of computerphobia. The younger age learners show lower anxiety and bold more positive attitudes toward computer learning than the older-aged ones. Besides, the higher education learners hold much more positive expectation toward computer learning while the lower education learners pay more attention to their learning capability and deficiency. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.