Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a non-exhaustive set of 36 design patterns for interactive social applications used by older adults. This proposal represents a reliable starting point for designers/developers to easily incorporate usability in interfaces for said technology promoting technology acceptance, use and adoption among older adults. The proposed patterns were based on previous efforts commonly presented as a design criteria and guidelines to describe usability issues in this kind of interfaces, reinforcing those alternatives by specifying related usability issues and providing solutions in a pattern-fashion useful for designers/developers. Pertinence of the patterns was analyzed through a usability study implementing «heuristic evaluation» technique (frequently used in Human-Computer Interaction to obtain users’ perception on a particular design). The study was conducted from two perspectives: the vantage point from experts, and the perception of a social group of older adults. The analysis revealed the proposed patterns are conducive to create well-designed interfaces able to provide a better user experience, encouraging a positive impact in the quality of life in older adults.

Abstract

In recent years, multiple sets of interaction patterns have been proposed for use in the design and the development of website interfaces. The semantic web also has enhanced websites with semantic content. This paradigm shift allows the reexamination of usual end-user tasks, which, as semantic web end-user tasks, might remain the same, be completely changed, or give rise to the development of new tasks. We have defined a list of semantic web end-user tasks and built an inventory of most of the interaction patterns proposed for semantic web use. We then classified these patterns according to the semantic web end-user tasks where they can be used and analyzed how interaction patterns can improve the functionality of each of those semantic web end-user tasks.