Abstract

Age ng and ts Impl cat ons for Elderly Web Exper ence 0
• Disabled people who grow older, whose long-term disabilities have affected
the ageing process, and whose ability to function can be critically dependent
on their other faculties, which may also be declining.
To accommodate elderly populations, it is necessary to understand age-related
differences in sensing, processing, and acting on information. It is also essential
to apply the knowledge base to ensure that Internet and the Web are easy to use,
and that interaction with them is a positive experience for elderly users. With an
understanding of the functional abilities of older people and their implications to
their activities, the Web designer would be able to design a proper interface to suit
the elderly needs. As well as understanding the psychological changes associated
with ageing, it is also crucial to understand how restricted functional abilities affect
elderly people when browsing the Web. A brief review of age-related impairments
and their implications for elderly people’s activities on the Internet are discussed
in this section.
Ageing.and.Restricted.Functional.Ability
It is in the nature of the ageing process that older people experience one or more
related impairments that affect the individual’s functional abilities. The two most
common functional abilities associated with the elderly in this regard are perception
and cognition. Perception is a process of receiving information from the outside
world, followed by mental activities, such as reasoning and problem solving, known
as cognition. Perceptual abilities refer to the visual, auditory, and olfactory senses
that combine to construct a mental image. Abilities falling within the cognitive classification
represent mental processes that individuals use in performing complex
tasks such as recognition of information and awareness. There are two general type
of cognition: experiential and reflective. Experiential cognition is a state of mind in
which humans perceive, act, and react to their surroundings effectively and effortlessly.
It acquires certain level of expertise and engagement, for instance, having
conversation or driving a car. In contrast, reflective cognition involves thinking,
comparing, and decision-making that lead to new ideas and creativity (Preece,
Rogers, & Sharp, 2002). Cognition involves range of interdependent processes: attention,
perception and recognition, reasoning, memory, and learning. A decline in
cognitive abilities constitutes the important aspect of the ageing process. Cognitive
abilities are concerned with an individual’s capability to memorise visual input, to
carry out reasoning using the input, and to recognise the information. The ability to
memorise and retain new information is essential in accomplishing computer tasks
(Jacko & Vitense, 2001). The locus of the problem for older adults seems to be in
transfer of information from short-term memory to long-term memory (Hunt, 1993).
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