Keywords

1 Introduction

Greater China Region is a rapidly aging society. The aging population in Taiwan is becoming increasingly serious. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the number of people over 65 years old has reached 600 million in 2017, accounting for 8.5% of the world population. An estimated 17% growth is expected by 2050. The United Nations’ global population aging report predicts that people over 60 years old will rise up to 44% of Taiwan’s population by 2050, which will become the highest percentage in the world. Nowadays, the target users of high technology spreading from the young to the elderly. However, most of the interface designs of products on the market are designed to satisfy the needs of young people and often neglects friendly interface design for older people. Many operational problems are found on smartphones, tablets,and computers, such as confusing abstract icons, interface information complexity, and so on. Zhou Beizhen (2009) pointed out that the decline of physical and cognitive abilities makes the learning process of operating technological products difficult for them, consequently resulting in decreased learning intention or even rejection. Online surveys are flourishing nowadays, but only a few websites and applications are designed specifically for the elderly, thus limiting their rights to express opinions use online surveys.

Stans Foundation Chinese Consumer Center (CCC) focuses on researching the daily needs of older people in the Greater China. Through a senior-friendly online survey design system, this research and CCC hope to attract older people to participate in the survey. The results collected from the survey will ultimately provide suggestions for the government or relevant industries and insights on the needs of older people in Taiwan, helping to build welfare strategies and product services for them. This multi-disciplinary collaboration project, Happy Life Survey, had members from design, business, and technology, looking for innovative output.

The case study of “Happy Life Survey” emphasizes on the user experience of the online survey and focuses on studying the problematic experiences of the interface of online surveys. With literature review, online survey analysis and experience gathered from the operational behavior of the older people, this research explores the design strategy, the operating characteristics for the older people, and help to establish a new version of a senior-friendly online survey system.

2 Literature Review

2.1 The Older People Research

The Middle-ager and the Elder.

The WTO defines ‘elder’ as being over 65 years of age. According to the Plan on Promoting the Job Redesign among Middle-agers promulgated by the Ministry of Labor of Taiwan in 2015, the ‘elder’ is defined as nationals aged over 65, while the ‘middle-ager’ is defined as nationals aged from 45 to 65. In the international arena, the categorization and definition of old age are all different. Zhang Yuhan (1989) also claimed that there is no single standard for “old”, which is linked to many aspects. Older people in this paper refer to the middle-aged and people aged 50 and above. By inviting them to participate in the survey, we attempt to understand the needs and demands of these older people who are about to enter or have already entered the old age.

Visual and Cognitive Mechanism of the Older People.

Shi Yiru (2009) claimed that the ordinary people experience the gradual decline of visual acuity at around 40-45 years of age. The focusing ability required for seeing close objects has gradually diminished the ability to adjust the distance to the objects decreases, and errors appear gradually in the phototaxis process needed to see objects. Adequate focusing becomes difficult, and visual acuity worsens. In addition, the dynamic images captured by the older people are not as clear as they were when they were young. Their sensation of light and shade diminishes, and their color perception and contrast sensitivity also decrease accordingly. Hawthorn (2000) pointed out that the degradation of vision is the most common factor affecting older people’s operation of products. Regarding the operation of the online survey, vision is the main channel for receiving information. Therefore, how to reduce the problems in use caused by vision deterioration of older people via the visual and other media and thereby enhance their experience of online survey operation is one of the major design considerations of this project.

Guo Chenjia (2001) pointed out that the deterioration of visual and cognitive functions in the older people is an important factor affecting their operation of products. After receiving the information, the older people pass it to the brain to generate cognition. Affected by aging, declining execution speed, and other factors, the cognitive abilities of the older people also deteriorate. Attention, discernment, reasoning, memory, and comprehension all begin to decline, leading to difficulties in their operation of products. Moreover, compared to the ordinary operations, the online survey involves more complicated information cognitions and operational interactions, such as understanding the questions in the survey, the logical relationship of the survey and the text input, which are more likely to cause filling-out obstacles among the older people, thereby affecting their experience of using online survey. Hence, how to help the older people deal with the problems resulting from cognitive decline to better complete the online survey is also an important design consideration of this project.

2.2 Online Survey Analysis

Online Survey and Other Survey.

During the twentieth century, there were great advances in the techniques and technologies utilized in survey research, from systematic sampling methods to enhanced survey design and computerized data analysis. The field of survey research became much more scientific, and several leading associations emerged to further enhance industry practices. Technology has revolutionized the way in which surveys are administered – with the advent of the first e‐mail surveys in the 1980s and the initial web‐based surveys in the 1990s (Schonlau et al., 2001). Joel R. Evans and Anil Mathur (2005) had a detailed description of the advantages and potential disadvantages of the online survey. If done properly, online surveys have significant advantages over other formats. However, it is imperative that the potential weaknesses of online surveys be mitigated and that online surveys only be used when appropriate. In addition, there are three main types of surveys: mail survey,personal survey,telephone survey. According to Joel R. Evans and Anil Mathur(2005)’s research, comparing the advantages and potential disadvantages of the online survey with these three survey methods, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The advantages and disadvantages of the main survey formats.
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To summarize, in order to reduce the difficulties found within the online survey and consider the particularity of the target group, this campaign simultaneously carries out an online and offline survey. Samples have been enhanced to help the older people with weak digital abilities to smoothly operate each step of the webpage. Therefore, while reducing their operational concerns, this research is also able to gather more information about the older people.

Survey Cake Online Survey System.

The research uses Survey Cake, a free online survey platform, to customize the official online survey system. Survey Cake system is used because Taiwan 25sprout Company is willing to cooperate with the research by carrying out case studies and providing technical support. Survey Cake online survey system has more than ten types of questions format and about twenty professional functions. It provides rich samples of surveys, such as customer satisfaction, market research, and so on. Moreover, results are shown through clear and interactive graphs with advanced features, like exporting results to Excel and SPSS or switch results to different chart display. However, from the pilot test conducted on the recruited old-ages people, eleven usability problems and operation characteristics were found. Therefore, the survey system will be customized according to the design optimization.

2.3 User-Friendly Website Design for the Older People

Previous literature on elder-friendly website design has contributed to the understanding of this research, and more importantly, new contributions are made to enhance and produce innovative results. Andrew Arch (2008) summed up the literature regarding website design for the older adults from the year 1999 to 2008. Some of these are driven by theory in academia, while others come from the web industry and practical experience. Examples of experiences derive from the search engine, navigation, and e-Services influence the operation of the elderly. There is no literature related to the older people about online survey research. However, among past literature, the most relevant information found is the format of the surveys. Line and her colleagues (Lines, Patel and Hones, 2004; Lines et al., 2006; Lines, Ikechi and Hones, 2007) proposed seven guidelines related to form design and expanded six requirements with the initial requirements as shown below in Table 2.

Table 2. Guidelines related to form design.
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There are many literature studies on the operation experience and the use of different digital devices for the older people. However, there has been no research done on the online survey for the old-aged people using different digital devices. This research is based on the information gathering and results from the relevant literature, the exploration and the improvement of the study of this field.

3 Case Study: Happy Life Survey for the Older People

3.1 Research Method

The purpose of this case is to help older people successfully complete online survey. Through the case study method, this research explores the user experience of online survey for the elderly. Yin (2003) pointed out that the case study consists of four important stages: narration, exploration, hypothesis verification and interpretation. The content of the study is shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Research stage
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3.2 Case Introduction

CCC focuses on researching the daily needs of older people in the Greater China. Through an elder-friendly online survey design system, this research aims to attract older people to participate in the survey. This case balances the restrictions of desirability, viability, and feasibility, producing the most innovative design for the older people, yet also meeting the needs of a wide age range of people. CCC is sponsoring and business marketing research center. Design Information and Thinking Lab is responsible for user Design. 25sprout Company and Cyberon Corporation are responsible for the technical support, the survey system and the Voice Output function. It is a responsive online survey website accessible on smartphones, tablets, and computers. Due to the server design challenges of smartphone operators, this paper uses the smartphone as the main device. The research, design and official website and the launch of this project are spanned from March to August of 2017. The online surveys and the 30 offline field tests were carried out simultaneously in Taiwan. The field tests contacted about 1,024 older people. As of October 18, a total of 79,441 responses from older people were collected, 36,032 respondents were over 50 years old and 2,042 respondents over the age of 75 years.

3.3 Target User Research and Insight

From data analysis and test observations, the design team discovered that the degree of physiological aging, cognitive competence and digital literacy are the most crucial dimensions in measuring the smoothness of the operation. In order to solve the usability problem of older people, the testers were classified into three types of digital literacy: low digital literacy, medium digital literacy,and high digital literacy. These criteria derive from the 33 participants of this research, based on their degree of physical age and cognitive competence. The purpose is to provide design strategy for the design, thus this standard, as reference only, does not have other applicability. The standard definition of physiological aging is the ability to see the interface information clearly, to hear the voice playback clearly, and to complete the hand operation accurately. Meanwhile, the standard definition of cognitive competence is the ability to recognize and understand the contents of the survey. The older people who can meet these criteria were then further divided into different target groups according to the operational experience, learning ability, and operating attitude, as shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Three types of digital literacy
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Based on the recruited subjects’ everyday usage of digital device functions, the design team roughly rated the older people’s digital literacy corresponding to the operational difficulty of these functions. The basic functions frequently used by the older people with low digital literacy includes making phone calls, sending text messages, taking pictures and using search inputs. The older people with medium digital literacy can also make frequent use of advanced functions like finding information, downloading and playing videos or music, using social networking software and playing simple games. As for older people with high digital literacy, aside from the functions used by the former two groups, they also use high-end features such as online forums, sending and receiving e-mails, cloud resource management, and online shopping.

Appropriate design strategies are implemented adapting to the classification of these three groups. The present survey website offers intuitive operation and pleasant design to older people with all three levels of digital literacy. Moreover, for older people with medium digital literacy, an easy-to-operate system, valid prompts and voice assistance are also needed. Finally, there is insufficient time for the older people with low digital literacy to digest their learning, thus the most effective solution would be assisted operation by presenting a one-time submission survey.

By testing and observing the operational behaviors of the older people, it is found that older people in three groups could be classified according to the digital ability. They present the following characteristic issues: (1) Poor eyesight. They require larger size fonts when reading; smaller font size or insufficient contrast between the text and the background can reduce readability. (2) Hand gesture. The habit of rushing, repeating and rage clicks until a response occurs; trouble hitting interface targets due to limited motor control; finger remains too long or difficult to click accurately. (3) Cognitive decline and memory limitation. Having a hard time reading and remembering too much content at a time; weak learning ability for things that they have not experienced before; can easily be disturbed by information unrelated to the operation in a page; memorize forms and steps by rote memorization because they do not understand the operation principle of digital products. (4) Weak digital ability. Compared with young people, some of the older people cannot use the advanced function or complex operation, do not understand the meaning of the generic symbols and icons on the internet, do not know that they can browse more information by sliding the page, and moreover, they have difficulties in typing. According to the problems found in the pilot test from the former survey system, the research preceded multiple iterations of the user experience design and test. The research process is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.
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UX research process

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3.4 User Experience Design

The design of this online survey website has experienced three iterations. In the first stage, the design team attempts to solve the problems based on the usability problems found in the pilot test,as shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Characteristic issues and design
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3.5 User Experience Test

Following two iterative tests and final test, the first stage design was verified and improved for the official online survey website. Details are described as follows.

Design of Poor Eyesight.

The system uses Voice Output function. The survey offers Voice Output in three languages (Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka dialect) to assist older people with poor vision or poor literacy. The test found out that most of the older people did not actively click this button when they were filling in the survey; moreover, they operated through their vision.

Design of Cognitive Decline and Memory Limitations.

1. Although the button was clickable, older people often clicked the small checkbox in the edge of the button. It might cause by their written experience of check-signs from paper surveys, so an enlarge checkbox has been provided for them to check. 2. Improved Stage Reminder web pages were added. Considering the number of questions and the variety of the types of questions presented in the survey, we speculated that older people might get lost or inpatient in the process of a survey, so reminders throughout the survey were added to help the users to know the progress and to encourage them to finish. We revised these five reminder pages and made the progress and content clear. The test found that the pages would cause some older people to try to click on the reminder box, leading them to stay on the webpage for a long time. Finally, the final version of the reminder design was simplified as one page, only using color to remind them the progress. The final version did help the older people generally feel that the survey would be less time consuming and thus could be finished without fatigue.

Design of Weak Digital Ability.

1. On the long page with more than one screen, the reminder for sliding down “More to Read downward slide” was changed to “After finishing, press the next page button to continue.” The test found that the original design could be confusing for older people after selecting the answer, and did not know how to continue. As a result, they would try to click the reminder bar, so a more detailed words description was provided for clear reminding.

2. The Operation Instruction page was removed. In the first stage of prototype design, the design team assumed that the operation instruction can assist older people with weaker technological capability in learning how to fill out the survey. The first version of the operation instruction presented animations before each question. However, the test found out that the older people would either operate on the page following the instructions or unable to understand the instructions due to inability to keep up with the speed of play.

Therefore, the operation instruction was optimized: (1) Dark gray area was added on both sides of the page to separate from the page contents, thus clearly informing its difference from the previous content. (2) Elders were allowed to skip the page quickly. (3) For older people who wanted to browse the instruction, apparent visual guidance was added, such as dividing instruction steps and slowing down the playing speed. Verification of the second version of design found that most of the older people were able to complete the operation smoothly, so the necessity of instruction was reduced. Older people unable to understand the instructions could also continue the survey by skipping the questions. Therefore, we decided to remove the operation instruction.

The revision process made the design team know that the mini animation mode of instruction was inappropriate for the older people who had never used online survey before. Older people with lower digital literacy were unable to learn about the operation by only watching animations in such a short time. However, we assume that the mini animation mode of instruction is suitable in the cases where older people need to use online survey frequently and have time for comprehension.

After six experts evaluated the usability problems of the original survey system and three iteration tests from the 30 participants, the design has been optimized and finalized. Comparing the scores of the original and the final online surveys, we found that the SUS usability scale scores rose from 79.06 to 86.56, and NPS scores rose from 37.5 to 100. This indicates that the redesigned survey has greatly improved usability, moreover, the applicability of research results has also been ensured to some extent.

4 Conclusion

In summary, this research might have the largest number of participants in the online survey for the older people. It showed that the user experience design has an important role in online survey or the senior. The study found out that, older people suffered from four types of common user experience problems: vision, hand gesture, cognition and memory limitation, or digital ability. In this study, design features were provided to resolve these four issues. After iterative tests, an elder-friendly online survey was designed. The design features of this case include: (1). Try to use Voice Output function to help older people fill in the survey. (2). Continue older people’s written experience from the paper survey. (3). Try to use Stage Reminder and Operation Instruction page. The design features are shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.
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Design features

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Moreover, this design was the first online survey using Voice Output to help older people fill in the online survey. How to use hearing assisting technologies to help the older people could be our future studies.