Usability Evaluation of Web Search User Interfaces from the Elderly Perspective

Abstract

The elderly population is increasing in many countries, often with health and incapacity challenges, largely disengaged them from the world of digital tools like Internet usage. They browse the Internet daily for obtaining needed information through various search engines through the search UI. Earlier technologies were fabricated for improving daily life, but the specific needs of the elderly are neglected often. Currently, available online search UIs are well-developed, but they did not consider usability in their design specifically for the elderly. This research aims to evaluate web search UIs based on the elderly perspectives to identify existing search UIs usability issues and recommend improvements to web search UI designs. The observation technique evaluated two web search UIs (Google interface and Bing interface) with fifteen participants aged 60 years and above. System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire was applied to measure the user satisfaction of the current two interfaces. The data collected from the observations were analyzed using content analysis, while the data acquired from the questionnaires were analyzed using the t-test. The results revealed a statistically significant difference in SUS ratings, with Google scoring 73.5 and Bing scoring 66.5, indicating that users prefer the Google interface over the Bing interface. Besides that, the usability issues were identified, and recommendations to improve the design of the search UI were suggested. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the issues that prevent elderly users from using web search UI and valuable feedback to designers on improving the UI to suit the elderly better.