This article presents a review on how software usability could be increased for users with less computer literacy. The literature was reviewed to extract user interface design principles by identifying the similar problems of this group of users. There are different groups of users with less computer literacy. However, based on the literature three groups of them need special attention from software designers. The first group is elderly users, as users with lack of computer background. The second group is children, as novice users and the third group is users with mental or physical disorders. Therefore, this study intends to focus on the mentioned groups, followed by a comparison between previous researches in the field, which reveals that some commonalities exist between the needs of these users. These commonalities were used to extract user interface design principles such as (a) reducing the number of features available at any given time, (b) avoiding using computer terms, (c) putting customization ability for font, color, size and (d) using appropriate graphical objects such as avatar or icon. Taking these principles into account can solve software usability problems and increase satisfaction of users with less computer literacy.
factors that influence software marketability is software interfaces. In this marketing rat race, Microsoft created a revolution in its Office software. In year 2007, they replaced menus and toolbars with a new structure called it Ribbon interface. Although the new interface has many advantages, usability researchers are criticizing MS Office interface from different aspects. They believe, it still has serious usability issues that hinder usage of MS Office for users with less computer literacy. Since middle-aged and elder users with less computer literacy are a large group of users who need to work with MS Office, this study aims to increase the learnability level among them by proposing an interface design solutions for MS Office. This research utilized in-person usability testing to evaluate the usability issues of MS Office in terms of both visual and cognitive issues. In order to ensure the validity of the data, it was tried to triangulate the data collection process by collecting data from different sources, namely, quantitative measurement of users' improvement, direct observation, and interview. The results of data collection has led to design a prototype for MS Office. Based on the usability test on the prototype and finding the factors that has led to users' improvement, a number of solutions are extracted for MS Office interface as a contribution to the body of knowledge. Putting these solutions into action, self-learning would be promoted and learning issues of middle-aged and elder users with less computer literacy would be decreased. users; usability; middle-aged novice users.
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