TY - JOUR

T1 - How age affects pointing with mouse and touchpad

T2 - a comparison of young, adult, and elderly users

AU - Hertzum, Morten

AU - Hornbæk, Kasper

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - Effects of age on pointing performance have become increasingly important as computers have become extensively used by still larger parts of the population. This study empirically investigates young (12-14 years), adult (25-33 years), and elderly (61-69 years) participants' performance when pointing with mouse and touchpad. The goal is to provide an integrated analysis of (a) how these three age groups differ in pointing performance, (b) how these differences are affected by the two pointing devices, and (c) how the submovement structure of cursor trajectories may explain performance differences. Results show that adult participants perform better than both young and elderly participants in that adult participants make fewer errors than young participants and complete trials quicker than elderly participants. Moreover, young participants are quicker than elderly participants, who make neither more nor less errors than young and adult participants. All three age groups were slower and made more errors with the touchpad than the mouse, but the touchpad slowed down elderly participants more than young participants, who in turn were slowed down more than adult participants. Adult participants made more efficient submovements than elderly participants; young participants had an intermediate position in that they were similar to adult participants for some submovement measures and similar to elderly participants for others

AB - Effects of age on pointing performance have become increasingly important as computers have become extensively used by still larger parts of the population. This study empirically investigates young (12-14 years), adult (25-33 years), and elderly (61-69 years) participants' performance when pointing with mouse and touchpad. The goal is to provide an integrated analysis of (a) how these three age groups differ in pointing performance, (b) how these differences are affected by the two pointing devices, and (c) how the submovement structure of cursor trajectories may explain performance differences. Results show that adult participants perform better than both young and elderly participants in that adult participants make fewer errors than young participants and complete trials quicker than elderly participants. Moreover, young participants are quicker than elderly participants, who make neither more nor less errors than young and adult participants. All three age groups were slower and made more errors with the touchpad than the mouse, but the touchpad slowed down elderly participants more than young participants, who in turn were slowed down more than adult participants. Adult participants made more efficient submovements than elderly participants; young participants had an intermediate position in that they were similar to adult participants for some submovement measures and similar to elderly participants for others

U2 - 10.1080/10447318.2010.487198

DO - 10.1080/10447318.2010.487198

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 703

EP - 734

JO - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

JF - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

SN - 1044-7318

IS - 7

ER -