Increasing the accessibility of pen-based interaction for older adults

  • Karyn Moffatt | University of Toronto

Older adults form one of the fastest growing demographics of computer users. Pen-based interfaces are an appealing platform for this group, but despite a multitude of advantages, many older adults find accurate pen interaction challenging. In this talk, I will present research to improve pen-based interaction for older adults. I will begin with an empirical evaluation of pen-based target acquisition, in which I identified sources of pen-based target acquisition difficulty and demonstrated how these difficulties vary across task situation and age. I will then present an investigation, which builds on the findings from the first and shows that combining techniques designed for younger users and the mouse substantially reduced the two most common types of pen-based error over a range of task contexts.

Speaker Details

Karyn Moffatt is a postdoctoral researcher working with the TAG Lab in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. She currently holds a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship and is also a CIHR Fellow in Health Care, Technology, and Place (HCTP). Karyn Moffatt’s research interests are situated in human computer interaction, and span a range of topics including accessible/assistive technology, social computing, and adaptive interfaces. She earned her PhD in Computer Science (2010) from the University of British Columbia for her research investigated methods for increasing the accessibility of pen-based technology for older adults. She also holds a MSc in Computer Science (2004) and a BASc in Computer Engineering (2001), both from the University of British Columbia.

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