Learning to Text: An Interaction Analytic Study of
Contents
1. i e the sequential pressing Later on in this episode we see an evidence of a failure in achieving sequential pressing Excerpt 2 201 S no yes but what do I do after A now then This questions reveals how the student has pushed too slowly resulting in the selection of the letter A rather than A which would have required a continued sequential pressing Her question also suggests that she does not see this as a failure rather she asks what to do next in order to get the A This could be because of an understanding displayed by some of the elderly that the diacritical marks can be added afterwards as would be the normal way to do it when writing by hand Furthermore we can see how this student has the wrong understanding of press until you get out It turns out that the initial explanation of how to do sequential pressing has been misunderstood Excerpt 3 301 S but I m keeping it pressed 302 down the whole time 303 I yes no you should not do that Her first attempt displayed above is to keep the key pressed down for an extended period of time This is one 1139 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies candidate solution for how to achieve sequential pressing which turns out to be incorrect Timing and embodied rhythm In describing the use of a computer mouse Livingstone 17 points out the importance of timing The hand movements have to be coordinated with what is happening on the screen If t2. not as suited to reveal the actual use and the challenges involved for the elderly when learning to use this new technology TEXT INPUT ON MOBILE PHONES Central for much Human Computer Interaction is the pressing of keys or pushing of buttons As trivial as it might seem several studies have shown how such input 1136 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies techniques can pose problems and hinder the interaction for users who are not familiar with the technology as well as for those who have some physical e g poor eyesight or dexterity or cognitive impairment Particular challenging are mobile devices due to their relatively small size This paper is concerned with the keypad including the distribution of the characters over the keypad as well as the methods for selecting characters The so called 12 key keypad consists of number keys 0 9 and two additional keys and figure 1 The placement of the space character varies among phones but the placement of the characters A Z is similar on most phones and is based on an international standard ISO IEC 9995 8 quoted in 25 The letters A Z are distributed over keys 2 9 in alphabetical order All these letters are visible on the mobile phone keypad The Swedish alphabet which is the language of the persons studied here adds an extra dimension by having three additional characters after Z in the alphabet A A and O These characters do not appear in alphabetical order ra
3. presentation General Terms Human factors INTRODUCTION The mobile phone is a widespread everyday technology in our society Many studies have shown how particularly young people are frequent competent and creative users of Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page To copy otherwise or republish to post on servers or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission and or a fee CHI 2010 April 10 15 2010 Atlanta Georgia USA Copyright 2010 ACM 978 1 60558 929 9 10 04 10 00 this technology e g 7 16 27 29 Still other generations are behind in adoption and use of the mobile phone 1 Studies suggest that the reason for this is twofold first the elderly have different attitudes towards the mobile phone causing them to use the technology differently or not to be as inclined to learn to adopt all its features 14 Second physical challenges and decreasing cognitive capabilities often associated with aging including decline in manual dexterity and eyesight may hinder the elderly from interacting with mobile phones which are not adapted to their needs 14 26 30 These two issues have received attention in Human Computer Interaction HCI resulting in studies and devel
4. two seconds This is the only explicit mentioning of clock time during this session It is likely that the exact time frame varies a bit between phone models However what is important here is not the exact time but the fact that the participants need to learn to feel how long this time is in order to manipulate their phones in a timely manner The students have to learn what it is to wait and how long a too long pause is In these excerpts we can see how the student is struggling with this On line 1 the instructor says you shouldn t wait so long thereby indicating that the pause that just has passed was too long The student thus gets an example of what a too long pause is The same happens on line 11 as a reaction to the pressing just previously In the latter case the direct feedback upon the incorrect pressing is formulated as you should not wait thereby formulating what she just did as a case of waiting April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA Finally in the last excerpt from this episode we will take another look at how the instructor is using gestures to show the pressing should be done when explaining it to the student Excerpt 5 501 1 no you press 0 2 instructor points five times towards the key picture below left 502 5 503 1 yes until you get out A instructor points on the display picture below right 1140 Figure 5 The instructor points w
5. CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA Learning to Text An Interaction Analytic Study of How Seniors Learn to Enter Text on Mobile Phones Alexandra Weilenmann Department of Applied Information Technology University of Gothenburg SE 412 96 G teborg SWEDEN 46 703 03 29 53 alexandra weilenmann ituniv se ABSTRACT This paper is based on an interaction analysis of video recordings of seniors being instructed in the use of texting Learning to text is a complex ordeal for the elderly which not only involves grasping such complex phenomena as hierarchically organized menus and text prediction technology but also more mundane and seemingly simple skills as pressing the keys The latter is the primary focus of the analysis as this is a common and taken for granted skill upon which many HCI systems rely We show how the seniors struggle with learning to press in a sequence embodying the timing and rhythm of key pressing and orchestrating their vision and pressing The study contributes to the general field of mobile phone design for the elderly to our knowledge on how people appropriate and learn to use new technologies as well as adds to models explaining novice users mastering of text input Author Keywords Mobile phone cell phone texting text input seniors novice users video analysis interaction analysis ACM Classification Keywords H5 m Information interfaces and Miscellaneous
6. Conversation analytic claims Communication Monographs 1479 5787 Vol 57 Issue 3 231 235 23 Renaud K and van Biljon J 2008 Predicting technology acceptance and adoption by the elderly a qualitative study In Proc of the 2008 Annual Research April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA Conference of the South African institute of Computer Scientists and information Technologists on IT Research in Developing Countries Riding the Wave of Technology Wilderness South Africa October 06 08 2008 SAICSIT 08 vol 338 ACM New York NY 210 219 24 Sacks H Schegloff E A and Jefferson G 1974 A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation Language 50 696 735 25 Silfverberg M MacKenzie I S and Korhonen P 2000 Predicting text entry speed on mobile phones In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems The Hague The Netherlands April 01 06 2000 CHI 00 ACM New York NY 9 16 26 Soriano C Raikundalia G K and Szajman J 2006 Middle aged users experience of short message service In Proceedings of the 7th Australasian User interface Conference Volume 50 Hobart Australia January 16 19 2006 W Piekarski Ed ACM International Conference Proceeding Series vol 169 Australian Computer Society Darlinghurst Australia 109 112 27 Taylor A S and Harper R 2002 Age old practices in the new world a study of gift giving bet
7. Therefore apart from giving some initial analysis and results on how the elderly learn to use mobile phones it is hoped that the paper can provide 1142 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies methodological inspiration on a method that can serve as an addition to other more common approaches As mentioned in the quote from Livingstone above The closer we look the more we see 17 23 We need to continue looking CONCLUDING SUMMARY The mobile phone is a widespread phenomenon in our society Many studies show how particularly young people have mastered this technology We now have a unique opportunity to study how a technology taken for granted in our society is approached by novice users in this case seniors Based on an interaction analysis of a video material of elderly people learning to use the mobile phone this papers reveals some of the challenges the elderly face when learning to use this new technology To master the mobile phone is not only about grasping the hierarchically organized menu and to learn how to use the various functions on the phone it is also about something seemingly more trivial learning to press the keys The mobile phone is designed for sequential key pressing within a certain time frame In this paper we have shown how the pressing of keys causes problems for the elderly when learning to use the mobile phone The elderly have problems understanding how to do sequential pressing of keys which i
8. as to press to get the intended character A She explains the reason for this using the formulation under the A This shows how the instructor is orienting to the hierarchical organization of the letters The students have to learn where these additional characters appear so that they can press the right keys and select them The Swedish language here adds the extra difficulty of understanding that some characters are available when pressing a certain key even if this character is not listed on that key It should be explained that in the Swedish alphabet these are considered separate distinct characters and are placed in the end of the alphabet However on the mobile phone these letters are not in alphabetical order but appear after their unmarked version When explaining the location of these characters the instructor first points on the relevant key line 2 then lists the available letters She encounters a potential problem when pointing to the invisible characters A and O Strangely she is mistaken here it is A and A not A and O This is solved by pointing out in the air with the same beating gesture When explaining the instructor is using her finger to first point out the location of the key then for each character she mentions she does a small beating gesture In this way she not only manages to point out the location of the character she also mimics the action which needs to be performed in order to achieve it
9. ated to adoption is how the elderly learn how to use the mobile phones One study suggests that there is a significant gender difference in how this problem is solved 13 Males try to understand how to use the mobile phone themselves and when failing they would consult the manual Only after that would they ask someone else for help However asking someone else was the preferred learning method for females followed by trying themselves and consulting the user manual was the least preferred choice among the female users The point of bringing this up is not primarily to point to gender differences in the learning process of mobile phone use among the elderly but rather to show that the elderly have a range of strategies and methods that they use and need to use in order to master mobile phone technology A common misconception is that the elderly are not interested in learning to use new information technology In fact there is no convincing evidence that the elderly are resistant to learning to use new information technologies 31 The older generation realizes that they need to keep up with this technology as it an integrated part of society and modern life 28 Finally and on a methodological note it should be said that the studies related above are all based primarily on interviews questionnaires and or focus groups While being particularly suited for studying attitudes towards and conceptions of technology this methodology is
10. c challenges that has the potential of hindering their interaction with technology if the design is not adjusted to fit these needs and assuming that we do not find a cure for aging There are benefits of looking at elderly people in order to shed new light on text input in general Even though they may have impaired vision or dexterity they still have to do the same things as any other user to be able to use the device successfully Doing things a bit slower and perhaps making the same mistakes several times render the problems more observable for analysis In this study the instructional character of the data was particularly useful in revealing problems Also some seniors have little or no experience with other screen based systems which makes it possible to observe a user group who needs to learn it all from the start This means that in focusing on senior users we not only reveal the specific challenges involved for this age group when learning to use the mobile phone but it allows us to shed new light on how interaction with the mobile phone is brought about Finally we want to emphasize that even though we cannot yet say that this is a general behavior this very data and the interaction analytic stance advocated here allow us to discover things which other methods have not been able to reveal Looking at details of text input and the problems the elderly encounter allowed us to identify a new set of issues to investigate
11. eads to confusion The standard mobile phone with these time outs is assuming a certain user with quick fingers and good eye sight who does not have to make adjustments like these Here we have looked at the entering of text on the mobile phone and how that relies on the sequential pressing of keys within certain time frames There are other functions of the mobile phone which rely on the same procedure For instance the key lock on many mobile phone models involves pressing two keys in consecutive order first press one key and then quickly press another key If there is a too long pause the phone times out and the action is revoked In this way learning to press the keys in the correct way is crucial to being able to use the mobile phone at all if one cannot unlock the phone it is of little use It has been argued in this study that it is of particular importance to understand the ways in which the elderly learn to use a new device It cannot be assumed that all users will have the patience to continue using something which initially seems difficult and cumbersome to use As MacKenzie and Soukoreff argue immediate usability is important because c onsumers discouraged by their initial experience and frustration may never invest the required effort to become experts 18 156 This indicates that understanding the challenges novice users face are particularly important It is still debated to what extent previous comp
12. eir mobile phone use 1143 April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA REFERENCES 1 Bolin G and Westlund O 2009 Mobile generations The Role of Mobile Technology in the Shaping of Swedish Media Generations International Journal of Communication 2 2009 108 124 2 Castells M Fernandez Ardevol J Linchuan Qiu and A Sey 2006 Mobile Communication and Society A Global Perspective MIT Press 3 Czaja S J and Sharit J 1993 Age differences in the performance of computer based work Psychology and Aging 8 59 67 4 Das A and Stuerzlinger W 2008 Modeling learning effects in mobile texting In Proceedings of the 7th international Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia Umea Sweden December 03 05 2008 MUM 08 ACM New York NY 154 161 5 Fitts Paul M 1954 The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement Journal of Experimental Psychology volume 47 number 6 June 1954 pp 381 391 Reprinted in Journal of Experimental Psychology General 121 3 262 269 1992 6 Goodwin C 2000 Action and Embodiment Within Situated Human Interaction In Journal of Pragmatics 32 1489 522 7 Grinter R and Eldridge M 2003 Wan2tlk everyday text messaging In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Ft Lauderdale Florida USA April 05 10 2003 CHI 03 ACM New York NY 441 448 8 Hawthorn D 2000 Possible implica
13. entation problem several characters are placed on the same key and the user needs to press repeatedly within a certain time frame to get the second third etc character on that key Because of this learning to do sequential pressing is an important part of learning to use the mobile phone It involves understanding where the characters are placed as well as understanding the right way to press to achieve them Below the instructor explains sequential pressing to a student by using the Swedish phrase trycka fram meaning literally press forward having the meaning of press until you get out What the elderly student is dealing with here is mastering what press until you get out means in this specific situation Excerpt 1 Instructor S Student Senior and P Phone 01 I now you press you have to press the A until 02 you ge t 0 5 out 0 4 cause under 03 the A li points on the key 04 under A lie two ABC for each character the instructor points once on the key picture below left 05 A and l the instructor points twice in the air above the phone picture below right Figure 3 The instructor says two A B C and points for each letter on the key Figure 4 The instructor points twice in the air when uttering letters A and O April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA On line 1 the instructor begins explaining which key the student h
14. esiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape attitudes of older adults In Proc of the 27th international Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Boston MA USA April 04 09 2009 CHI 09 ACM New York NY 1693 1702 16 Ling R 2000 We will be reached the use of mobile telephony among Norwegian youth Information Technology and People 13 2 102 120 17 Livingston E unpubl Manuscript The Ordinary Society 18 MacKenzie I S Soukoreff R W 2002 Text Entry for Mobile Computing Models and Methods Theory and Practice Human Computer Interaction 17 147 198 19 Massimi M Baecker R M and Wu M 2007 Using participatory activities with seniors to critique build and evaluate mobile phones In Proceedings of the 9th international ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility Tempe Arizona USA October 15 17 2007 Assets 07 ACM New York NY 155 162 20 Mikkonen M V yrynen S Ikonen V and Heikkil M O 2002 User and Concept Studies as Tools in Developing Mobile Communication Services for the Elderly Personal Ubiquitous Computing 6 2 Jan 2002 113 124 21 Pavlovych A and Stuerzlinger W 2004 Model for non expert text entry speed on 12 button phone keypads In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Vienna Austria April 24 29 2004 CHI 04 ACM New York NY 351 358 22 Pomerantz A 1990
15. fail to keep the rhythm of the key pressing This problem is evident in the episode below where the same instructor as in the previous episodes assists another woman in achieving the letter A Similar to the previous example the problem here is to understand what press until you get out means Excerpt 6 601 I and then you press the A 602 1 0 points towards the phone 603 S A 604 I till 2 0 all the way till you get yes 605 till you get there no you can t wait 606 11 arms out in resignation 607 you can t wait you can t wait and look 608 and see what came 0 5 you have to 3 2 609 faste no that s too slow makes a gesture of holding the arm fully stretched and looking at an imaginary phone in her hand picture below left 610 S no 611 1 3 612 S slow 613 2 9 614 I no now you re waiting again now you re 615 waiting again 616 you have to press until you get out 617 the letter makes a circular continuing gesture with her hand pressing several times on an imaginary phone picture below right Figure 7 The instructor is doing the gesture of waiting to look at the display Figure 8 With a circular continuing gesture the instructor displays the correct version of sequential pressing Here the instructor begins by pointing once at the key which should be pressed and says that it should be pressed all the way ti
16. he click is not timed properly nothing happens or the wrong function is selected If these embodied actions and their timing is not made familiar and habitualized the manipulation of the screen becomes an and endless and endlessly problematic task 17 274 sic The same is true for using the mobile phone Because of the time out set to distinguish between the keystrokes the student needs to learn to grasp this time frame and act according to it This involves more than just learning over how many seconds the time out spans It involves learning to press the keys within this time frame getting a feel for how long this time is in relation to the various activities with the phone Below the student is making too long pauses between the keystrokes Excerpt 4 401 I one more no not you shouldn t wait so long 402 S but I m keeping it pressed down 403 the whole time 404 yes no you should not do that 405 you see 406 S no okay 407 I shouldn t first two 408 I no 409 P one beeping sound 410 from the key 411 I no eh no you should not wait 412 S or Ar 413 I yeah you shouldn t wait The student is told not to wait What waiting means in this specific situation is not obvious The students have only briefly been informed about how long these time periods are One of the instructors mentions once in relation to the key lock that the pause between pressing the two keys cannot be more than
17. ith a beating gesture five times towards the key Figure 6 Instructor points on the display where the result of the pressing will be visible Here on the words you press line 1 the instructor points five times with beats towards the key Thereby she shows the rhythm and the beat with which the pressing should be done On line 3 while uttering until you get out she explains what this pressing if done correctly should result in and where on the display this will be visible This is similar to what happened in excerpt 1 where we saw how the instructor used gestures to not only point out the location of the character but in doing so also displayed how the pressing should be successfully performed Orchestrating vision and key pressing Above we have seen how when pressing the keys the seniors need to keep up the tempo to succeed in getting the intended letter However this is problematic considering that this is a learning scenario and they still have not reached eyes free input 18 While mastering the pressing technique the seniors have to look at the keys in order to press the right one but at the same time look at the display to see that the intended character appears Thus CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies there is a need for the elderly to orchestrate their vision and key pressing in a timely manner Looking at the display to get feedback on their actions the tempo breaks down and they
18. ll look into the ways in which they are learning to do sequential pressing finding the timing and the embodied rhythm of the key pressing and how they are orchestrating their vision and key pressing Below we focus on the details of two episodes from the Mobil r sessions For sake of presentation several excerpts are made from these two episodes This allows us to follow the activity as it unfolds In both episodes we see how the two women are struggling with entering the letter on their phones they both have models similar to the one presented in figure 2 The senior students have been given the task to open a text message enter the message Nu r h sten h r snart r det jul igen Now fall is here soon it is Christmas again and send it to the person sitting to their right This message has been specifically designed to contain the characters and thereby adding an extra difficulty to this task as these characters are not displayed on the keypad In the episodes below the students have come to the second word and are just about to type the when they run into problems and ask the instructor for help Figure 2 The mobile phone model used in the sessions 1138 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies Sequential pressing The mobile phone keys are designed for sequential pressing rather than simultaneous pressing As mentioned in the background the multi press method is a solution to the segm
19. ll you get However the student is too slow 1141 April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA in her pressing which can be seen from the instructor s feedback no you can t wait When the student fails again the instructor makes an exaggerated version of pausing to look while describing it you can t wait and look It is difficult to see from the angle that the video was captured exactly at what moment the student is switching between looking at the display and looking at the keypad But for the participants the instructor and the student this is handled as a case of waiting to look what came The instructor sees this as something that should be corrected Later on in the same excerpt we see how the instructor instead described verbally and with a gesture you have to press until you get out line 16 The gesture here is her hand pressing the keys of an imaginary phone in a continuing sequential manner thereby showing how the correct pressing should be done In this instructional sequence the instructor juxtaposes the incorrect version to press then pause and look with the correct version to keep on pressing DISCUSSION The exercise of dialing a telephone number involved what would normally be considered a very simple skill However the attempt to describe the actions and reasoning involved in dialing a number reveals the very fine seemingly endless texture of detail of which this activity co
20. lly focused on verbal communication researchers acting within this tradition have come to recognize the importance of non verbal communication as part of talk in interaction Goodwin explains how s trips of talk gain their power as social action via their placement within larger sequential structures encompassing activities and participation frameworks constituted through displays of mutual orientation made by the actors bodies 6 1489 In this way both talk and gestures can be relied upon to refer to certain parts of the environment A useful analytical instrument within this approach is what is sometimes called the next turn proof procedure meaning that a next action or turn provides a display of a person s understanding of the prior action This does not only provide the members with a resource with which to assess their understanding it is also a useful resource for the analyst When the participants display their understanding of the prior turn to each other this understanding is also made available to the analyst 24 Using this analytic approach meant looking at the moment to moment unfolding and sequentially organized activities of the elderly when interacting with each other and their mobile phones In that way we get a detailed understanding of the character of the problems the elderly face when learning to text The data has been transcribed according to conventions in CA 24 with the exception of capitali
21. ms lead more isolated lives and have physical or cognitive challenges affecting to what extent they can participate in society When defining the elderly in relation to the use of information technology common categorizations in addition to mere age are based on social limitations as well as limitations in possibility and willingness to use technology 31 Thus aiming for a description of mobile phone use among the elderly is consequently a complex task and one runs the risks of creating a group which is too diversified to be useful Yet in the same way that mobile phone use among the young can be generally characterized by being more creative expressive and social than that of other generations 2 the older generation s mobile phone use has some distinguishable characters In the following a short outline of the defining features of the older generation s mobile phone use is presented A very clear finding in many studies is that seniors primary reason for acquiring and continuing to use a mobile phone is safety and security 13 14 23 Because of deteriorating health the elderly want to be able to call for assistance in an emergency They also appreciate being able to keep in contact with relatives who have health issues For some safety and security is not only the primary but the only reason for having the mobile phone In Kurniwan s 13 focus group with seven older women users all participants re
22. n to the problem of choosing between several possible characters on one key is a predictive text entry system where the most common one is the T9 method It requires only one key press per letter Many of the elderly dislike the text prediction feature 13 In the instructional sessions reported on below they were advised to turn the T9 function off because it was thought to be too confusing Recent CHI papers present studies of different input designs and methods for mobile devices including traditional 12 keys keypads and touch screens 9 11 and provide models of the differences between expert and novice users when it comes to speed and learning 21 4 Time is an important unit of analysis in these studies Fitt s law 5 a model for serial fast movements is used to measure the time between keystrokes 25 Many of these studies are concerned with learning in that they focus on how novice users learn to use a certain type of input technique sometimes also comparing between different input modes to see which one is the fastest and easiest to learn Studies rely on quantitative approaches and are experimental in their setup where users are often asked to enter sequences of nonsense characters e g ccc ee u rrr hh u rrr 4 or cece 99 zzz 5 I yyy kkkkk b 44 rrr 21 This methodology enables the exact comparison between different input techniques when it comes to time performance and accuracy Although providing u
23. ngles as well as actions that were unclear on the video due to overlapping conversations and activities The video material is part of a larger study of seniors mobile phone use As part of that study two focus groups and 16 semi structured interviews have been carried out with elderly people About half of the interviews included some practical exercise of text input where some were video recorded In addition several conversations have been held with the person in charge of the Mobilar course on a national level to clarify issues around the course and its organization In all these interviews and this background information allowed for a rich ethnographic understanding of the video material by providing a broader picture of the challenges involved when seniors learn to use the mobile phone In general it can be said that the data from the interviews and focus groups mostly confirmed previous research see above on attitudes and adoption whereas it turned out that the video data allowed investigating the topic from a new angle The video material collected in this study was analyzed using an interaction analytic approach 12 with origins in Conversation Analysis CA 24 In short the tradition of CA has developed a rich set of concepts for analyzing the sequential ordering of conversation where conversationalists ways of managing such things as e g turn taking ibid have been documented in great detail While CA origina
24. nsecutive pressing of keys The elderly users need to learn to press the same key several times until the intended character appears As we have seen in this study common mistakes here are pressing too slowly resulting in the selection of the wrong letter or keeping the key pressed down which results in selecting the number of that key Further we have seen how the elderly needed to orchestrate their vision and key pressing in a timely manner While learning to enter text they had to look at the display to see what happened when they pressed the keys However when pausing to look they would break the tempo of the key pressing and the action they were involved in was disrupted Experienced users have learned to press until the right letter appears without stopping If you have not yet mastered this the only way to know if the right letter has appeared is to stop and look And when they do stop and look many times they fail to resume pressing quickly enough resulting in the selection of the wrong character One complicating factor here which might slow them down is the fact that many of the senior users have impaired eye sight and have problems seeing the text on the screen Sometimes they need to take off or look under the rim of the glasses or hold the phone up in a certain direction and distance from the eyes to enable better vision This takes time and the action they are currently involved in with the phone is disrupted which l
25. nsists This is part of what is meant by saying that it is a real activity The closer we look the more we see 17 23 Learning to text In this paper we have taken a closer look at the different skills and competencies which beginner elderly users need to master in order to successfully use the mobile phone Particularly we have focus on text input and the pressing of keys as these are important interaction techniques for many HCI systems By investigating in detail one episode from the Mobil r sessions we have revealed some of the problems the elderly face when learning to use the mobile phone and how these problems are dealt with As we have shown texting involves seemingly trivial matters like pressing buttons and holding the phone while also involving more complex tasks like navigating through hierarchal menu systems and grasping the notion of text prediction systems Some of these things are similar to other common activities Beginner mobile phone users presumably know what is involved in pressing keys or pushing buttons e g in the elevator on a calculator etc and now have to learn what pressing the keys on a mobile phone involves However seemingly simple and mundane activities like pressing keys become something else on a mobile phone it is a taken for granted skill which has to be re mastered in this particular context CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies Entering text on the mobile phone requires the co
26. opment of models for adoption diffusions and attitude towards the mobile phone 23 as well as design concepts and evaluations of potential services 18 19 In this study we wish to address both these aspects by looking at how elderly adopt and learn to interact with the mobile phone It may be that there has been too much focus on advanced technological solutions while there is still much to learn from the elders interaction with seemingly more simple and mundane technologies like regular mobile telephones At CHI 2009 Lindley Harper and Sellen 15 argued that the key to supporting older adults in their efforts to communicate lies not only in creating new technologies but in improving awareness understanding and the ease of use of existing possibilities 15 1701 There is a need according to them to understand the challenges involved for the elderly when trying to adopt these existing technologies Looking at the older age group not only gives us clues as to how to improve mobile phones and make them more suitable for their specific needs it also adds to our general understanding of learning of technology We now have a unique opportunity to study how a technology taken for granted in our society is approached by novice users in this case seniors In this paper we direct our attention to a group of seniors learning to text While text input on mobile devices has been studied in great detail within HCI these studies
27. ported that carrying mobile phones increased their feelings of safety and security but could not think of any other benefits of having a mobile phone Also it has been noted in previous work that elderly people seldom buy their first mobile phone themselves 23 It is April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA often given to them by a relative who either buys a new mobile phone or give them a used one when buying a new phone themselves This is so common that in a model of how elderly people accept and adopt mobile phones STAM Senior Technology Acceptance and Adoption model for Mobile technology the appropriation phase is excluded 23 When older people themselves buy technology they are often asked by the sales person if they have younger relatives that can help them 31 As pointed out by Renaud and Biljon it is important to make the distinction between adoption and acceptance of the mobile phone t echnology adoption is a process starting with the user becoming aware of the technology and ending with the user embracing the technology and making full use of it 23 210 211 Acceptance on the other hand is not necessarily a result of buying or otherwise acquiring a mobile phone If the user does not accept the device as could very well be the case if a relative considers it a good idea to give someone a phone who has not expressed an interest in having one it is unlikely that the user will reach full adoption Rel
28. rely on quantitative experimental methodologies Here based on a video material of how a group of elderly are instructed 1135 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies in how to enter text on a mobile phone we can approach mobile phone use in a more naturalistic setting It turns out that learning to text is a complex task for the elderly It not only involves grasping such complex phenomena as hierarchically organized menus and text prediction technology but also more mundane and seemingly trivial matters such as how to press the keys in a sequence and how to find the timing and the rhythm of the key pressing The aim of this investigation is to add to the growing field of mobile phone studies including research on the use of mobile phones among the elderly to studies of how people appropriate and learn how to use new information and communication technologies and to existing models for text input THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES AMONG THE ELDERLY The older population constitutes a growing part of the members of the Western world In general they are becoming more healthy and active and have higher demands on activities living conditions etc However this is an overall trend within the older population living conditions vary greatly Some are still working despite having passed the age for retirement and travel socialize and live in ways which much resemble younger generations Others are more hindered by their age related health proble
29. s needed in order to perform a number of functions on the mobile phone among them texting The elderly tended to press too slowly press several keys simultaneously or keep one key pressed for a longer period of time all being incorrect interpretations of how to do sequential pressing In order to master the mobile phone the elderly need to find a rhythm in the hands and a way to hold the phone which enables sequential pressing within certain time frames In this way learning to use the mobile phone involves embodying key pressing Also the novice elderly users had problems reaching eyes free input These results give us an insight into how the mobile phone is taken up by the elderly as well as new knowledge on what it means to learn to use a new technology ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was partly funded by VINNOVA The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems and LinCS The Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society I want to thank Barry Brown Gustav Lymer and Keith Murphy for comments on the text This data material has been presented at the NAIL data session and at the PlaceME 2009 workshop and I want to thank the organizers and participants of these data sessions for their input Also I wish to thank the anonymous CHI reviewers for valuable comments Last but not least a warm thank you to the seniors who with much enthusiasm welcomed me to learn more about th
30. s with valuable insight on text entry they often fail to consider the phenomenon in context With their focus on quantifying clock time between keystrokes and measuring performance in various ways these studies tell us little about the situated and embodied experience of learning to press the keys METHOD AND SETTING The material presented in this paper is based on observations and video recordings from a study group where seniors learn how to use the mobile phone This study group called Mobilar Mobilearn is organized by the Swedish national pensioners organization PRO The course content and material is developed in collaboration with Sweden s largest telephone operator Typically the course is run by two volunteering non paid instructors who are also seniors and members of PRO The instructors have received training and have a study material to follow In the particular course instance reported on below two instructors one man and one woman were instructing five persons three women and two men During the course video recordings were made to be able to capture the details of the interaction between the instructors and the participants in the course as well as the interaction with and manipulation of the mobile phones The two hour long recording were transcribed to allow for a detailed analysis Field notes and photos were also collected to capture things 1137 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies from different a
31. ther they have been placed under their respective unmarked version A and A are available under the same key as A key 2 and O under O key 6 These characters are not visible on the keypad Figure 1 The outline and distribution of characters on a standard 12 key keypad Since there are several characters available under each key the system needs to select one This problem of ambiguity has a number of solutions The two most common solutions at present are the multi press method and the T9 solution The multi press method is described as follows ibid In this approach the user presses each key one or more times to specify the input character For example the number key 2 is pressed once for the character A twice for B and three times for C The multi press approach brings out the problem of segmentation When a character is placed in the same key as the previously entered character e g the word on the system must determine whether the new key press still belongs to the previous character or represents a new character Therefore a mechanism is required to specify the start of a new character One solution is to use a timeout period within which key presses belong to same character 25 10 This means that one key needs to be pressed April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA several times Most phones have such a timeout normally between one and two seconds Another widespread solutio
32. tions of aging for interface designers Interacting with Computers 12 5 pp 507 528 9 Holleis P Otto F Hussmann H and Schmidt A 2007 Keystroke level model for advanced mobile phone interaction In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems San Jose California USA April 28 May 03 2007 CHI 07 ACM New York NY 1505 1514 10 ISO IEC 9995 8 1994 Information systems Keyboard layouts for text and office systems Part 8 Allocation of letters to the keys of a numeric keypad International Organisation for Standardisation 11 James C L and Reischel K M 2001 Text input for mobile devices comparing model prediction to actual performance In Proc of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Seattle Washington United States CHI 01 ACM New York NY 365 371 12 Jordan B and Henderson A 1995 Interaction analysis Foundations and practice The Journal of the Learning Sciences 4 1 39 103 CHI 2010 Seniors Using Technologies 13 Kurniawan S 2008 Older people and mobile phones A multi method investigation Int J Hum Comput Stud 66 12 Dec 2008 14 Lee Y S 2007 Older adults user experiences with mobile phones Identification of user clusters and user requirements PhD Thesis Industrial and Systems Engineering Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia 15 Lindley S E Harper R and Sellen A 2009 D
33. uter knowledge has impact on learning to use a new technological device like the mobile phone While one April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA study suggests that the amount of previous experience is more important than age 3 Hawthorn 8 questions this arguing that seniors have problems generalizing and transferring what they have learned in one system when starting to use a new one A note on the method and generalizability This paper is based on a limited set of data Further studies are needed in order to verify whether the problems encountered by the elderly in this study are problems that all elderly encounter when learning to use mobile phones As mentioned in this paper the elderly are a very heterogeneous group It is likely that some of the problems that the elderly encounter are problems that any beginner user disregarding of age would have to deal with when learning to interact with a technology of which they have little previous experience A child who learns to use the mobile phone for the first time also needs to grasp text input However some physical challenges such as poor eye sight and impaired manual dexterity are particularly common in the aging population and can cause trouble if important elements of interaction with the technology rely upon these capacities In relation to that discussion it can be said that when today s texting teenage generation grows old there will still be some general age specifi
34. ween teenage mobile phone users Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems Changing our world changing ourselves April 20 25 2002 Minneapolis Minnesota USA 28 Turner P 2008 Being with A study of familiarity Interacting with Computers Volume 20 Issues 4 5 September 2008 Pages 447 454 29 Weilenmann A and C Larsson 2001 Local Use and Sharing of Mobile Phones in B Brown N Green amp R Harper eds Wireless World Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age Godalming and Heidelberg Springer Verlag pp 99 115 30 Ziefle M Bay S 2004 Mental Models of a cellular phone menu Comparing older and younger novice users In S Brewster and M Dunlop eds Lecture Notes in Computer Science Mobile Human Computer Interaction MobileHCI 2004 Springer Berlin pp 25 37 31 Ostlund B 2005 Design Paradigms and Misunderstood Technology The Case of Older Users In Jeager Birgit ed Young Technologies in Old Hands An International View on Senior Citizen s Utilization of ICT DJ F Publishing Copenhagen pp 25 39 1144
35. zing single characters e g A A in order to distinguish them from grammatical April 10 15 2010 Atlanta GA USA articles The translations to Swedish have been made by the author with emphasis on content Regarding body movements boxes around an utterance represent the duration in which a particular gesture is made The gesture is described in the text next to the box and shown where appropriate with a picture from the video Finally it should be said that the analysis is made based on a small data set The claim therefore is not that this is generalizable for all elderly disregarding of age health education previous experience with technology etc It is not possible to say to what extent this is common or not Arguing along the line of CA t he claim of regularity however is not the news or value of the analysis 22 Rather the aim is to show how using this micro oriented approach we can identify a number of problems that can occur when elderly encounter new technologies Subsequent research is then needed to establish generalizability across a number of relevant categories ANALYSIS LEARNING TO TEXT As trivial as it may seem learning how to press the keys poses a number of challenges for the seniors in learning to use the mobile phone In the following we will examine some of the problems the elderly encounter when learning to press the keys in a successful way resulting in the intended action We wi
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search