Hitomi Sato

Tips for designing mobile phone web pages for the elderly

This paper proposes tips for designing Web pages appropriate for the elderly. The characteristics of mobile phone Web pages and the effects of aging are elucidated. The elderly had difficulty in reading texts, finding the focus, operating pages and input, and understanding the contents in some cases. Tips for designing Web pages that are appropriate for the elderly are proposed based on our observations.

Perception of movements and transformations in flash animations of older adults

With the concurrent rapid increasing of aging population and digital science, issues on providing appropriate information elements on computer and website have become more and more significant. This study was aimed at examining different effects of movements and transformations in flash animations on performance (time and error) and subjective perception (satisfaction, vision fatigue and workload) of older adults. Eighteen subjects coming from the University of the Third Age of Railway Ministry of China all of who were experienced computer and Internet users participated in the experiment where flash animations mode and moving speed were manipulated as independent variables. The results indicated significant differences among four different animations modes for performance (time and error) and vision fatigue. Significant differences were also found among three levels of moving speeds for performance (time and error) and vision fatigue. Further implications of flash animations design for the elderly were discussed.

The impact of moving around and zooming of objects on users' performance in web pages: a cross-generation study

The rapidly aging population of Japan is now considered a serious social problem. In fact, populations are aging worldwide, and considerable research has been done on the phenomenon. One area that has been researched is Web page design. Some common guidelines for Web content or page designs make it difficult or impossible for people with certain cognitive or visual disabilities to read moving text quickly enough. Movement can also distract these people to such an extent that the rest of the page becomes unreadable, and people with physical disabilities might not be able to move quickly or accurately enough to interact with moving objects [6]. With this in mind, experiments were conducted on 24 people in their twenties and thirties in Yokosuka-shi, Japan and on 18 elderly people in Beijing, China. The results were then compared.

Why does IT support enjoyment of elderly life?: case studies performed in Japan

In order to support elderly people to remain activate in communicating with their families and friends, we are developing always-on communications systems that are based on the exchange of indirect information, the videophone, and touch panel displays. Two field experiments were conducted with elderly people in Japan. One of the experiments was conducted between families members, while the other was performed between elderly people and social workers. The results show that IT can support the enjoyment of elderly life.

Communication service design by interhuman interaction approach

This paper describes a new communication service that supports all communication environments for healthy elderly people. This service was designed based on the interhuman interaction approach, and the acceptability of this system was verified by a field test.