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The usability of a touch-panel interface was compared among young, middle-aged, and older adults. In addition, a performance model of a touch panel was developed so that pointing time could be predicted with higher accuracy. Moreover, the target location to which a participant could point most quickly was determined. The pointing time with a PC mouse was longer for the older adults than for the other age groups, whereas there were no significant differences in pointing time among the three age groups when a touch-panel interface was used. Pointing to the center of a square target led to the fastest pointing time among nine target locations. Based on these results, we offer some guidelines for the design of touch-panel interfaces and show implications for users of different age groups. Actual or potential applications of this research include designing touch-panel interfaces to make them accessible for older adults and predicting movement times when users operate such devices.
INTRODUCTION
The senior citizen population has been growing and will continue to increase. At the same time, rapid progress is being made in information technology (IT), such as personal computers and the Internet, and some forms of IT are commonplace in many environments, including the workplace and the home. The opportunity for older users to access IT has been increasing (Czaja, 1997; Vanderheiden, 1997). Because it is highly likely that older adults will use some form of IT as they carry out their daily activities, the issue of aging and IT is very important. Human-computer interaction must be designed and implemented so that age-related changes in functional abilities, such as perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions, are taken into account.
Touch-panel interfaces are ubiquitous. They are used with passometers (automatic ticketvending machines) in railway stations, bookretrieval systems in libraries, and cash dispensers or automatic teller machines at banks. As people of all ages have more opportunities to use touch-panel interfaces, it is necessary to design interfaces that are easy to use. Many researchers have investigated the usability of touch panels by comparing them with other input devices, such as the computer mouse (Card, English, & Burr, 1983; Epps, 1986). Compared with a mouse, the touch panel has the advantage of simplicity that is, it requires less learning time. For...