Drag-and-drop for older adults using touchscreen devices

Abstract

This study investigates the accuracy of drag-and-drop interaction for older adults by analyzing the number of supplementary attempts for positioning a target during the execution of tactile puzzle games on two different screen sizes, tablet and smartphone, with finger and pen interaction. 24 older subjects (aged 65 to 86) participated of the experiment. The results showed that there is a significant effect of the interaction techniques during interaction on smartphone. Subjects were more accurate during pen interaction on both screen sizes. Age effects were significant but subjects aged 80 years old or oldest sometimes performed better than subjects aged 70 to 79 years old, especially during pen interaction. This study shows that drag-and-drop is an efficient technique for moving targets even on small touchscreen devices and pen interaction may help older users to execute more accurate drag-and-drop interaction on touchscreen devices.

Learning to Drag: The Effects of Social Interactions in Touch Gestures Learnability for Older Adults

“…The number of studies on understanding how older adults with no relevant experience learn the basic touch gestures and what factors can facilitate the learning process remains small, despite the increasing use of touch-based technology in everyday lives. Existing studies on touch gestures typically involve older adults with technology experience [12,32] or older adults with specific health-related constraints [1]. To address this gap of understanding, we conducted an empirical study where we recruited subjects who did not have any experience with digital technology and would have to learn the manipulations for the first time on the touchscreen.…”