Department of informatics

Master thesis, 30 HE

Human-computer interaction and social media

SPM 2020.10

“Daglig dator”

Combating computer anxiety through daily online exercises

Fredrik Johansson Åhed

“Daglig dator” – Combating computer anxiety through daily

online exercises

Abstract It’s well known that the contemporary rapid development of technology has created a

digital divide between those who adopt and use the emerging digital services, and those

who don’t. The ones who fail to adapt to the new digital society, is at great risk of being

completely excluded from it, which strips away both social, health related and economical

opportunities. These people are often seniors, and multiple factors weigh in on their non-

participation. One of the more common factors are technology relates stress, and in

extension, computer anxiety. While there exists literature on how to reduce computer

anxiety, it’s often linked to physical training courses that the user can sign up for. The

purpose of this study is to explore a completely digital solution, based upon the loose

principles identified by Dos Santos and Santana (2018). This is done through the creation

and evaluation of a senior-oriented website, that offers the user daily exercises in basic

computer management, knowledge, and safety, with the goal of reducing computer

anxiety. The results show both that the principles indeed can be used as design guidelines,

and that my design has potential, although some adjustments have to be made.

Keywords: HCI, UX design, design for the elderly, computer anxiety, computer self-

efficacy, digital divide, digital exclusion

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1. Introduction

The rapid advancements in technology during the last couple of decades, have had a major

impact on both the individual and society in general. Within the time span of one single

decade, we have all witnessed the rise of the smartphone, which has taken the world by

storm, revolutionizing and completely reinventing the way we interact with friends, family

and society in general. In a similar way, internet and computer power has skyrocketed over

the course of about ten years, which has resulted in machines that can handle almost any

task we throw at them. There is no denying that we live in an exciting time, where the digital

world seemingly has a solution to almost any problem or inconvenience we might

experience. That of course, is assuming you have the means to experience it all.

Unfortunately, there is a darker side to the digital expansion, that easily gets

overshadowed by the contemporary technology hype: the digital divide (Fields, 2019;

Reneland-Forsman, 2018). While the vast majority of the population experiences the ability

to enjoy the rapid, technical advancements, there are also those that has fallen behind for

different reasons, and as a result fails to catch up with the rest. The more society is getting

digitized, the tougher the situation gets for those who have fallen behind. This is especially

true in a country like Sweden, where the technology is modern, and the internet access is

overall very high. Sweden is one of many countries that has since a few years back begun

an exponential digitalisation of everyday services (Reneland-Forsman, 2018). This includes

shopping, information gathering, traveling, healthcare – the list goes on. At the same time,

traditional, analogue ways of interacting with society are slowly being dismantled, to

encourage the population to embrace the new age of technology. This has proven to cause

major problems for a certain demographic in society, namely the elderly, who are forced to

sacrifice their old ways in order to remain an active part of society. Seniors who fail to

successfully adapt, are often feeling excluded from society (e.g. Fields, 2019; Reneland-

Forsman, 2018).

Fear or anxiety is a common barrier to participation experienced by the elderly - a

barrier that can only be overcome by controlled exposure to the key object behind the

anxiety. One of the most common forms of technology-related anxiety among the elderly is

computer anxiety. Computer anxiety (CA) can be defined as any negative emotions, feelings

or bodily sensations that arise during a real or imaginary interaction with a computer (Dos

Santos and Santana, 2018). Seeing as the computer is one of the most vital aspects of active

participation in today’s society, it’s important that we as designers and developers of our

digital tomorrow does everything we can to support those that lack the technical

capabilities in any way we can.

Naturally, the concept of computer anxiety is nothing new, and it has been the key

subject of many studies and papers. Knowledge on the topic are readily available, and

physical classes that aim to support those suffering from it, through the use of tutoring and

training, are indeed available to some extent (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018; Rivinen 2020;

Umeå stadsbibliotek, 2019). However, there are very few websites that allow the seniors to

educate themselves on the topic. Those that does exist are often outdated, have a complex

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and non-user-friendly design, or are in other ways not ideal or adapted for senior learning.

The outbreak of the covid-19 crisis in early 2020, and the effects it’s had on the elderly

population, also stresses that there is a need for a user-friendly platform where seniors are

given the appropriate tools and information needed to successfully educate themselves on

computers, and in extension also reduce their computer anxiety, without the need of

physical tutoring.

1.1 Purpose and research question

By adhering to the principles of Dos Santos and Santana, the purpose of my study is to test

if it’s possible to create an effective, online education-tool to reduce CA amongst the elderly.

In order to help with this evaluation, I have also constructed the following research

question: “What problems and opportunities related to senior learning can be identified

when using this specific tool?”

By identifying potential problems and opportunities with my design, I hope to able to

provide the research field with further knowledge on how to approach the design of

educational websites that can reduce the CA amongst the elderly. Furthermore, I hope to

be able to prove whether Dos Santos and Santana’s principles can be used as concrete

design guidelines when designing computer-based tools to educate and reduce CA amongst

seniors.

2. Related research

In this section I will present all relevant related research that have been used throughout

the work process.

2.1 The elderly and the digital divide

“Svenskarna och internet” is a yearly report conducted by Internetstiftelsen, which maps

the swedes internet habits on a yearly basis. In the report from 2019 (Andersson, J, 2019)

we can see how Sweden as a country has very good internet accessibility overall, where 98%

have access to it, and 95% use it regularly. On the surface, this seems to indicate a successful

incorporation of technology, where almost the entire population is enjoying the benefits

that the internet has to offer. It becomes even more eye-opening when these numbers are

put against the internet usage of other developed countries, like the US for example.

According to a yearly report by Pew Research Center, the U.S are experiencing a situation

where only 73% of the population aged 65+ reported that they use the internet regularly

(Pew Research Center, 2019).

However, while Sweden’s sheer numbers are promising, there exists unseen problems

underneath the surface. A Swedish study from 2018 shows how the elderly population of

Sweden is being exposed to a kind of digital exclusion (Reneland-Forsman, 2018). The

country’s heavy focus on technology, and similar political goals like “Sverige helt

uppkopplat år 2025” (Sweden completely connected year 2025), along with the dismantling

of traditional, analogue services, have created a situation where many seniors have begun

to feel that they can’t keep up with the rapid digital changes in society. Many services that

used to be analogue up until a few years ago, have now become targeted by the quick

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digitalization. In answer to this, many elders choose to stay at home instead of facing the

daily struggles of obtaining and handling digital tickets for bus and train travels, for

example. Naturally, this exclusion has major negative impacts on multiple areas of the

individual’s life, such as crippling their social sphere and severely limiting their access to

basic services such as information gathering, health care, public transportation, and

personal economy. Active resistance against the digitisation was also shown to have

concrete economical consequences, through the form of extra charges when a service was

to be conducted offline instead of online (Reneland-Forsman, 2018). The study also showed

how elders slowly adapted to their situation, by giving up and accepting this exclusion from

society. Many rely on the help of more knowledgeable friends or family members, in order

to solve their technical dilemmas. To get personal assistance by a younger family member

in this way has unfortunately been shown to increase computer related anxiety. This is due

to the user being blatantly aware of their lacking capabilities on the subject, and how they

themselves fuel the common stereotype of elders being bad at handling technology (Dos

Santos and Santana, 2018).

Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), shows that the world’s

population aged 60+, is estimated to rise from 12% to 22% between the year 2015 and 2050

(WHO, 2018). This hefty increase of seniors is going to require that society starts to

acknowledge the problems that is experienced by this demographic, and develop more

fitting solutions thereafter (Correia et. al., 2020).

One of the goals of the libraries of Sweden is to educate the population on how

information and communications technology (ICT) can be used for information gathering,

learning, and cultural participation (Minabibliotek.se, 2019). During my study I came into

close contact with my local library, Umeå city library. One of their recent projects called

“Mer för fler”, aimed to promote digital participation among parts of the population that

experienced digital exclusion, where the elderly played a major role (Minabibliotek.se,

2019). As a part of the Mer för fler-project, the library also conducted interviews with parts

from the target population, related to digital participation. The interview result showed

how digital exclusion was strongly connected to feelings, and not the technology itself. This

could be feelings of fear, embarrassment, or being in the way. These are clear signs of

computer anxiety, which I will elaborate upon in a moment.

It has been shown that older adults are more prone to technology related stress and

anxiety than other, younger age groups (Dos Santos and Santana, 2018). This is because

older people often have received a lot less training in ICT than the younger generations.

This in turn has over the years created a negative stereotype of seniors being uncapable of

handling technology, that older people both consciously and unconsciously relate to.

2.2 Current approaches on educating the elderly

The area of ICT education for the elderly is not something new in the HCI community.

Multiple studies on the subject has been conducted over the years, and great progress has

been made on how to successfully educate seniors in ICT usage. However, the vast majority

of successful ICT training programmes revolves around a setting where seniors get to

attend physical courses (Dos Satos & Santana, 2019; Cooper-Gaiter, 2015; Naumanen &

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Tukiainen, 2007; Di Giacomo et. al., 2019). In these cases, the seniors are moved to the

specific location for the study, where they get access to personal tutoring and help on the

spot. Meanwhile, there exists a huge lack of research on ICT training that are conducted

from the home, where the elders have to rely on instructions and their own capabilities to

learn. One possible explanation for this is that the inclusion of tutors has been shown to

greatly enhance the learning outcome, as a teacher can act as both help and a source of

motivation. However, this should not mean that research on pure online courses should

cease to exist. Allowing the user to effectively educate himself/herself, would lead to more

accessible training for everyone, and a reduction in required resources. The covid-19

outbreak which has prevented seniors from leaving their homes, has also shown that there

is a clear need for services that allow elderly people to educate themselves from the home.

While there does exist websites that aim to educate seniors through purely digital means,

they are more often than not hobby websites, created by other seniors (Skillfull senior,

2020; Seniors guide to computers, 2020). These sites can without a doubt be useful to a

certain extent, but they lack both scientific backing, and a professional, supportive design.

In the domain of UX design, there are fairly standardized practices that should be applied

when designing user interfaces for elderly users, which could greatly increase the

effectiveness of a self-learning website (UX Planet.org, 2019). These practises are based

upon the lacking cognitive, perceptual, and psychological abilities that elderly people often

suffer from (Gatti et. al., 2017). The practices include a slow pacing of new information,

focus on one thing at a time, clear feedback, usage of “breadcrumbs” to lead the user to a

specific place, plain simple backgrounds – just to mention a few.

2.3 Computer anxiety and how to reduce it

Computer anxiety is a term that bundles together both negative emotions and bodily

sensations that arise when the affected person interacts with a computer (Dos Santos &

Santana, 2018). Psychological signs of CA include feelings of fear, intimidation, hostility,

and anger, but also embarrassment, self-loathing, and a fear to damage the computer in

question. Physiological changes related to CA include changes in blood pressure, heart rate,

and perspiration. These symptoms can appear both during an actual computer interaction,

but also during an imaginary interaction. This shows that preconceptions about one’s own

computer skills play a huge role in perceived CA as well, which I will go into more detail in

in the next section (2.4). Multiple studies show that people with CA often experience

trouble adopting and actively using new technologies, and tend to instead prefer using

analogue or traditional solutions (Dos Santos and Santana, 2018; Rivinen, 2020; Nycyk,

2020; Steelman & Wallace, 2017; Di Giacomo et. al., 2019).

There exist multiple ways of identifying CA, where the vast majority consists of different

Likert scale questionnaires (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018). The most commonly used

questionnaire is the old but seemingly reliable “Computer Anxiety Rating Scale” (CARS)

(Heinssen et. al., 1987). If you score high on this questionnaire, you suffer from high levels

of CA, and vice versa. Other existing methods include the Computer anxiety index (CAIN),

Computer attitude scale (CAS), and the State-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) (Simonson &

Maurer, 1987; Nickell & Pinto, 1986; Spielberger et. al., 1999). According to Dos Santos and

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Santana (2018), specifically three scales should be used together to measure CA in an as

effective way as possible: CARS, CAS and STAI. However, while the scales can be used to a

certain degree, the authors argue that using forms to measure feelings does come with its

own problems. Not only does it require special attention from the person answering the

questions, but the content of the questionnaires themselves are up for heavy interpretation

and possibly misunderstandings.

Reduction of CA is indeed possible, and all research on the area agree that repeated

computer training is the right remedy (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018, Rivinen, 2020; Nycyk,

2020; Steelman & Wallace, 2017). In their literature review on the subject, Dos Santos and

Santana (2018) presents a compiled list of items that should be promoted when the goal is

to reduce CA. These are: computer training, well-planned interface, access to computer,

first good experience, frequency of use, and computer usefulness. The exact context

regarding how to utilize this list of items is never furtherly discussed, which leaves it open

for interpretation and experimentation. I will further elaborate on this list and how I’ve

used it in my work under the method section.

2.4 Computer self-efficacy

To fully understand CA, we must also look into the domain of computer self-efficacy. Self-

efficacy is a term that was first coined by Albert Bandura in 1977. The term seeks to

describes a person’s belief in his/her own abilities to succeed when faced with a challenge

(Bandura, 1977). As such, self-efficacy can influence a person in both positive and negative

ways, depending on the challenge at hand, and the persons own perception of it. Because

self-efficacy is very personal, and can vary depending on multiple factors, self-efficacy is

considered domain specific. Therefore, we are specifically referring to a certain kind of self-

efficacy, namely computer self-efficacy, as Dos Santos and Santana call it, when discussing

the subject in a computer related context. We define computer self-efficacy (CSE) as a

person’s belief in his/her own abilities to succeed, when faced with a computer-based

challenge. Multiple papers have demonstrated that there is a significant relationship

between CSE and CA, and that anxiety increases as CSE decreases (Saadé & Kira, 2009;

Cooper-Gaiter, 2015; Dos Santos & Santana, 2018, Torkzadeh et. al., 2006). Conversely, as

CSE increases, anxiety decreases. Therefore, it’s equally important to work towards an

improved CSE as it is to try to reduce CA. A person with low CSE tend to experience similar

negative traits as those that suffer from CA, which further solidifies the link between the

two. When faced with a computer-based challenge, a person with low CSE often take a long

time to complete it, and the overall success-rate of completing tasks tend to be low (Dos

Santos and Santana, 2018).

The known methods of improving CSE is, not surprisingly, closely related to the methods

of reducing CA. Multiple sources agree that repeated training over an extended period of

time, is an effective method (Cooper-Gaiter, 2015; Torkzadeh et. al., 2006). Other

important factors that should be promoted for an improved CSE are allowance to practice

and make mistakes, having a lot of time to perform a specific task, making the task

meaningful, offering help as needed, having a physical tutor available and keeping the

language understandable (Minabibliotek.se, 2019).

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3. Method

In this section, I’m going to describe the entire workflow of the study, what methods that

was used and how.

3.1 Prototype

3.1.1 Design Philosophy

Based upon both the knowledge and limitations of the current related research, I came to

the conclusion that I wanted to create a system that would offer the elderly users daily

computer related exercises to be completed from home. This would promote the daily

computer training that has been shown to reduce CA and increase CSE, and at the same

time allow me to explore the uncharted territories regarding the effectiveness of a complete

digital solution for education (Dos Santos and Santana, 2018; Saadé & Kira, 2009;

Reneland-Forsman, 2018). I also made the decision to use Dos Santos and Santana’s

principles of CA reduction as design guidelines, when creating the prototype and its

contents. Below is a point list of the different principles, and a short description of how I

adhered to them when coming up with my system.

• Training: By having the user perform daily exercises through the computer, they

would get repeated training in computer usage and management.

• Computer experience: Computer experience is, as previously discussed, closely

related to CA through CSE (Saadé & Kira, 2009). In order to reduce CA, CSE must

also be increased. It’s also important to keep the users different CSE-levels in mind,

in order to strike a balance for the difficulty of the exercises (Fischer et. al., 2019).

• Well-planned interface: By keeping to well established UI-design principles for

the elderly, I could create a well-suited interface that would support the needs and

preferences of the target demographic.

• Access to computer: One of the requirements for participation in my study would

be that the user should have access to a computer, preferably at home. Without an

easily accessed computer it would be difficult to keep up with doing the daily

exercises.

• First good experience: The first meeting with the system is very important, as it

sets the users attitude towards the medium, and in extension, the users CSE when

using the medium. Because of this, I put a lot of time into creating a friendly and

relaxed introduction to the system.

• Frequency of use: The frequency of use was easily assessed, as my entire concept

revolved around daily exercises, which ensured a frequent use of the system.

• Computer usefulness: While the overall focus of my daily exercises was put on

security information and tips, I did include sections and exercises that promoted

useful features that an elderly user could find useful, such as browser tools.

I used a point list created by UX Planet.org (2019), when planning the concrete design

of the prototype. These specific design choices will be further elaborated upon under the

next headline (3.1.1). As mentioned earlier, the elderly is a complex demographic, where

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potential disabilities and sicknesses must be carefully considered when developing a

senior-oriented design (Gatti et. a., 2017). For example, modern interface concepts, such

as the “hamburger menu” or “hover menu”, might be unfamiliar to older users, and

should therefore be replaced my more traditional methods of interaction. I therefore

chose to put the overall focus on clarity rather than practicality.

The choice of making the prototype completely digital, came with its own set of

challenges as well. While this would allow the users to complete every exercise from home,

it would also strip away the possibilities of a physical teacher. To make up for this, I put an

emphasis on the exercise instructions, to make sure that they were clear, well-written and

understandable in relation to the task at hand.

The overarching theme of the daily exercises was decided to be safety. This choice was

based partly on my own prior experience of CA, and partly because of security being the

theme frequently discussed at the senior IT-meetings that I joined when searching for

participants. This process will be further elaborated on later. Furthermore, there is research

on the subject that stresses the importance of the elderly being informed about the risks

that revolves around PC-usage (Grimes et. al., 2010). Other than safety, I wanted to

promote basic computer maintenance as well as features that the seniors could find useful.

I also looked into common problems that seniors tend to experience when using ICT. In a

study made by Vacek and Rybenská (2016), the authors identified the most common

difficulties that Czech seniors experienced when interacting with computers. Among the

most common problems identified were downloading files such as images from the

internet, understanding, creating and renaming folders, and moving files between folders.

These dilemmas all ended up being touched upon in my final prototype.

Gamification elements were considered in the design, as they have been shown to

increase the fun factor, which indeed is an important element when learning something

new (Miller, 2013). However, the idea was ultimately scrapped, mostly because of platform

limitations as well as time constraints. These possible gamification elements would have

been very simplistic, and existed through a basic score that could be increased through

completion of the exercises. Badges or achievements could also have been an option. In a

similar vein, extra exercises were also considered. By completing these extra, non-

mandatory exercises, the user could score even more points or special badges. This could

in turn open up the possibilities of sharing your score and achievements with your friends

via social media or mail, and by so doing, initiate a kind of friendly competition. This would

in turn make the app more sociable as well, which is an important element in preventing

further isolation (Reneland-Forsman, 2018). While no extra exercises were included in the

end, I did include the feature of repeatable exercises. Repetition, as previously discussed,

is an important aspect of learning something new, so the users were encouraged to repeat

completed exercises if they were able to.

3.1.2 Building the prototype

My original plan was to create a combined computer and mobile prototype that would offer

the seniors daily exercises. The instructions would be viewed on the mobile application,

and the exercise themselves executed on the computer. This would allow the user to have

the instructions ready at all times, without the need to switch between browser windows or

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tabs. However, after working on an app prototype for about a week, I began questioning my

chosen approach. Due to my demographic being prone to both physical and mental

disabilities, having two screens felt very contradictory due to the varying cognitive abilities

of seniors (Fischer et. al., 2019), especially when all the activities were supposed to be

undertaken solely on the computer screen. Imagine an elderly person having to constantly

switch focus between the computer and the smartphone, only to get repeatedly locked out

of the phone as it enters standby mode. To instead keep everything on one big screen, felt

much more fitting for the audience.

This change of approach allowed me to streamline my prototype building as well.

Instead of building everything from scratch, I began working with WordPress in order to

construct a working website prototype. This decision was made based on the time

constraints of the project, and the fact that my experience with java and CSS is limited to

say the least. With WordPress I was able to produce a functioning website with an adequate

design with relative ease, although it was a far call from what I had envisioned originally.

This is mostly because of the lacklustre design choices that are available with a non-

business WordPress subscription. I will discuss this more in the Limitations-section.

While the design of the website was a relatively quick endeavour, the writing of the daily

exercises was the complete opposite. I had to constantly try to strike a balance between

sounding too technical and too simplistic. The goal of my exercises was not to simply tell

the user where to click, but also to describe why they were doing that specific interaction.

This led to a lot of text with multiple accompanying images, which I at first feared might

feel intimidating to the user. Needless to say, a lot of time was spent trying to make the

challenges both short, understandable and informative.

When capturing images for the different steps of each exercise, I used Oracle VM

VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a free virtualization software, which allows for the creation and

management of virtual machines. By using this tool, I could boot up a virtual computer

inside my own computer, which in turn allowed me to document and take screenshots of

the different installer windows, from the view of a first-time user.

3.1.3 The finished website

After about two weeks of designing the WordPress website and constructing exercises, the

prototype was complete. It consisted of a temporary WordPress domain that would remain

open for a year, with the custom web address www.dagligdator.com. The website itself used

the WordPress blog-preset structure. This set up the website like a blog, where the daily

blog posts would consist of the exercise material.

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Image 1: Main page of the website

As the website catered to elderly swedes, the language used both on the main site and in

the exercises was Swedish only. The main page consisted of a simple, blue website banner,

a brief description of the study, and overall information regarding how to navigate and use

the website. In English, the banner said: “Daily computer – For increased knowledge and

confidence – One day at a time”. I deliberately chose to not mention CA in the banner, and

instead focus on the possible positive outcomes of the participation, being knowledge and

confidence. This choice is reflected upon in the Discussion-section. All text on the page

were rather large to make it easy to read, and no excessive design elements were present,

to encourage the user to focus on what is important, and avoid distractions. In the bottom

of the main page was a link to the exercise of the day. This allowed the user to easily access

the relevant exercise from the homepage. In the top of the site there was a small menu,

consisting of three categories: “Home”, “All exercises” and “Contact”. By clicking on “All

exercises” the user would be taken to a page with a list of all the exercises, i.e., all blog posts,

that previously had been posted. This list would therefore get longer the more the week

progressed. This section was created to allow the users to repeat exercises. The contents of

the “Contact” page is rather self-explanatory, and consisted of basic information on how to

contact me, such as a mobile number and an e-mail address.

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Image 2: A segment from the first exercise.

Every exercise was written the week before the website was opened to the public, and a new

post were scheduled to go online at 00:00 every day during the opening week,

automatically. This worked thanks to one of WordPress’s built in features, that allowed

scheduling of future posts.

3.1.4 The exercises

The exercises themselves were structured in a straightforward manner to make them as

easy to understand and follow as possible. All excessive design was stripped from the blog

post, in order to include only the essentials. Each exercise consisted of a headline, a short

introduction to the subject and then a step-to-step guide on how to complete the task,

accompanied with descriptive images. The language used was as formal and professional

as possible, and I tried to go into great detail when describing the different actions that the

respondents were supposed to perform. Two out of seven exercises where theoretical,

where the user only had to read an informative text. The rest of the exercises had the user

to do something actively. Every day at 00:00, the assigned exercise for the day was

automatically posted on the website home screen. The next day, a new exercise took its

place, and the old exercise was automatically moved to the “Previous exercises”-page.

Below is a list with the number, name, and a short description of every exercise.

Exercise 1: Basic computer maintenance. In this exercise, the participants were

supposed to update their computer and investigate their anti-virus settings and firewall.

This exercise was necessary to put in the very beginning of the exercise week, to make sure

that everyone had an updated OS and would start from the same base.

Exercise 2: Intro to internet. In this exercise, the participants were to download the

web browser Firefox and its plug-in Adblock. This was another exercise that had to be put

rather early in the week, as later exercises would depend on it being installed on the

computer. I also wanted everyone to use the same browser, to make sure that everyone had

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access to the same UI and browser-tools. Adblock was chosen as it removes distracting

advertisements present on multiple websites. This would in turn lead to a more focused

and clear browsing experience for the elderly user.

Exercise 3: Secure internet surf. A theoretical exercise, where information was given

regarding security indicators on websites, such as the “https” and the padlock icon, as well

as general tips on how to tell if a website is secure or not. This is the first exercise where the

theme “security” is clearly visible.

Exercise 4: Wifi and router. Another theoretical exercise, where different internet

types were explained in a basic manner, and tips regarding what can be done if one

experiences connection issues.

Exercise 5: Browser tips. An exercise aimed to demonstrate the practical tools that

comes with Firefox. For example, the navigation buttons, bookmarks, tabs, and zooming.

By promoting these tools to the seniors, I hoped to be able to promote a smoother browsing

experience in the future.

Exercise 6: Basic file management. In this exercise the respondents were to download

an image, find it, and move it to a fitting place in their computer. The content of this

exercise was aimed to counter the problems that elders faced in the research by Vacek and

Rybenská (2016).

Exercise 7: Ending and continuation. The final exercise, where the respondents were

given instructions on how to uninstall the software that were installed in the beginning of

the week. The respondents were also given information about the future of the study, i.e.

the upcoming interviews.

3.2 Participants and the exercise week

The biggest challenge that I faced during my study was gathering respondents that could

evaluate my prototype. In order to be relevant for my study, the respondents had to be age

55+, and experience CA to some degree. Working with the elderly can be challenging in a

variety of ways. For starters, it’s a very wide demographic, consisting of individuals with

very different needs and characteristics. Their way of interacting with the world, and in

extension – computers, are very diverse and can take on multiple different forms (Fischer

et. al., 2019). Furthermore, elderly people have very varying perceptual, cognitive, and

psychological abilities that acts as obstacles when trying to learn and use ICT, which needs

to be taken into account (Gatti et. a., 2017).

The process of finding respondents was a drawn-out endeavour, which consumed about

a month of my total time I had working on the project. Not only are elderly people

notoriously hard to get in contact with, especially those who are suffering from any kind of

CA, but the spring of 2020 was also plagued by the covid-19 outbreak. This epidemic

exponentially cancelled out every group activity for elderly people in the entire region,

which in the end also put an end to my search for respondents.

My first attempts at finding users involved contacting different senior clubs in the region

via mail. This proved to be completely fruitless, as I never got an answer from any of them.

My second attempt involved contacting relevant parties within the commune, which ended

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up with me getting sent between a number of different people, who all forwarded me to a

new person that they though would be more relevant.

In the end I found a useful contact at the city’s library, who became a crucial partner

during the entire recruitment process. I mentioned this briefly earlier in the thesis. This

staff worker at the library held weekly “computer aid sessions” for elderly people, where a

small group of seniors congregated every Monday to listen to a presentation about a

relevant digital topic, and afterwards get personal help with any technical issues they might

have had. By joining two of these sessions, and presenting my concept in front of the small

crowd, I was able to gather the bulk of my total of ten initial respondents. Beyond assisting

me with finding respondents, they also provided me with some valuable empirical data they

had collected themselves. The rest of my respondents were gathered through a similar

meeting, at a “IT cafe” where elderly people would come to listen to short presentations

related to IT.

However, the problems did not end with the gathering of respondents. Out of the total

of ten respondents that originally was interested, only seven answered my “confirmation

mail” that I sent out a few days before the exercise week began. This mail was sent out to

provide the respondents with a bit more information of the entire study, as well as the web

address. It also acted as a way for me to see how many would participate, and whether I

would need to change my plans or not.

During the exercise week itself, WordPress provided me with inbuilt tools to monitor

the website traffic to a certain extent. This allowed me to see how many users had read the

daily exercise each day. To my unfortunate surprise, the participation was rather lacklustre,

especially during the latter parts of the week. The reason for this would become apparent

in the interviews later on. Because only about half the user population seemed to do the

challenges after the second day, I sent out a friendly e-mail reminder the next day, in hopes

that this would re-increase the participation. And while the participation did increase

during the day of the mail, the numbers dropped again the day after, and remained around

50% until the week was over. Below is a table showing the total respondents that partook

in the exercises. For the sake of anonymity, I’m not presenting their specific age.

Number Age Gender

1 65+ Male

2 75+ Male

3 75+ Female

4 75+ Male

5 75+ Female

6 80+ Female

7 55+ Anonymous

Table 1: The respondents that partook in the exercises.

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3.3 Interviews

In order to get the most data out of my small respondent pool, I conducted a qualitative

study through semi-structured interviews to evaluate the experience of the participants,

as described by Yin (2015). As I wanted to put an emphasis on understanding the feelings

and personal experiences of the respondents, semi-structured interviews felt more fitting

than their structured counterparts. In order to create a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, I

tried to make the session more of a conversation rather than a traditional scripted

interview. The questions were also very open-ended, where the participants were

encouraged to give personal and elaborate answers.

Directly after the exercise week, I began sending out emails to all seven participants,

asking each individual to propose a time and date for an interview session with me. Due to

the outbreak of the covid-19, elderly people were not allowed to have visitors, so the

interviews would have to be conducted over the phone. I purposely waited until after the

exercise week to contact the respondents regarding interviews, because of two main

reasons. Firstly, it felt unnecessary to put additional pressure on the respondents during

the exercise week, as they already had a lot to think about. Secondly, I wasn’t sure if every

respondent would even remain active throughout the week. Unfortunately, my uncertainty

proved to be true, and a small drop-off of one respondent happened after the exercise week.

The participant stopped answering any of my messages, so in the end I was down to seven

respondents. This in turn forced me to use my “back-up” respondent to make sure I had

enough interviewees. My backup-user had partaken in the exercises, just like the other

participants. However, as this person was close to me personally, I had originally hoped to

not have to use him/her, as personal relations may skew the result.

Other than that, the interviews that followed went well, and after one week, all seven

participants had been successfully interviewed. The sessions began by me reading the rights

of the participant, and the participant agreeing to the terms. I also asked for permission to

record the call, in order to simplify the data analysis later. Afterwards I went through all

the interview questions and provided complementary questions as I saw fit. The length of

the interviews varied greatly, but usually took between 30 and 45 minutes. The exact

interview questions are presented below. The questions were originally written and

presented in Swedish.

1. How would you describe your relationship with computers? Earlier experiences?

Feelings evoked etc.?

2. How many exercises did you partake in?

3. Please motivate why you partook in the particular number of exercises that you

did.

4. What did you think about the exercises?

4.1. What did you like? (Complementary, if necessary.)

4. 2 What did you not like?

5. Have you gained anything from Daglig dator?

6. What would you like to change?

7. How can I make the experience more senior adapted?

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8. What themes should the exercises revolve around?

3.4 Ethical considerations

As my study revolves around the gathering of data from respondents, special care must be

taken to ensure the safety of the participants. As a Swede, I used the guidelines described

in Forskningsetiska principer inom humanistisk-samhällsvetenskaplig forskning

(Vetenskapsrådet, 2002). The guide revolves around four main requirements that needs to

be assessed when conducting research that involves respondents. Below I will summarise

the four requirements in relation to my study.

1. The information requirement – The researcher must inform the respondents about

the role they will play in the research, and what tasks await them. The respondents

also have the right to abandon their participation at any time, without

consequences.

2. The consent requirement – The participants must give their consent in order to be

a part of the study.

3. The confidentiality requirement – The respondent’s personal information should

be kept hidden to the greatest degree. This includes any information that might

have been gathered during the study that can be used to identify an individual.

4. The usage requirement – The data gathered from the respondents may only be

used for the research purposes.

Before the interviews even started, I had sent out an informational e-mail to all participants

where I mentioned how the interviews would work, and how long they would take, to allow

the respondents to prepare themselves. At the time of the interview, I began the session by

providing the participant with information that covered all four requirements, as well as

getting his/her consent to continue.

The inclusion of AdBlock in one exercise might also raise some ethical questions. I will

discuss this in detail in the discussion section.

3.5 Analysing the data

When analysing the data gathered from the interviews, I chose thematic analysis as

method, as it’s considered one of the more flexible ways to analyse qualitative data (Yin,

2015). It is also a method that I have used before, and therefore also have some experience

with. The method revolves around the identification of patterns and “themes” amongst

your gathered data. While there is no clear-cut way of performing such an analysis, I once

again looked to the methods of Robert Yin (2015). Yin presents a general five-phase

workflow on how to perform a thematic analysis. The five phases include compiling,

disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding.

The first step, compiling, involves creating order amongst your basic data. This was a

rather quick endeavour in the case of my study, as I only used one method of data gathering,

and my pool of respondents was on the smaller side of the spectrum as well. I also gave

every interview and recording a number, to make the compiling process easier to handle.

The second phase involves disassembling the data into smaller, more manageable

fragments. In my case, this was done by assigning codes to certain words or sentences, that

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repeatedly was seen in my data pool. In the third phase, reassembly, I took my small code

fragments and categorised them into new themes that were relevant to my RQ and purpose

of study. In the fourth phase the newly reassembled data was interpreted, to create and

understand new narratives. The fifth stage, conclusion, symbolises the concluding remarks

made for the study, where the researcher demonstrates what has been found. In this study,

the conclusion drawn from the result will be described in the next section.

4. Result and analysis

I will now go through the most prominent problems and opportunities of the website, that

were identified during the exercise week.

4.1 Identified problems

First, let’s look at the problems that were identified after one week of prototype usage.

4.1.1 Lacklustre participation

The most apparent problem that were identified immediately after the interviews, was how

few of the respondents managed to complete every exercise. Out of the seven participants

that entered my study, only about half of them successfully managed to make it all the way.

Why this was the case will be furtherly explored under the next paragraph. Partial

participation of different levels was seen among many of the respondents, in which the user

would take part in a few challenges, but then stop as it got either too hard or too scary to

continue. Two respondents stopped with their “active” participation during the second

exercise, but still continued to partake by reading every new exercise for the rest of the

week. Finally, one participant was unable to complete any exercises. This, however, was

because of a serious emerging sickness that prevented the user from finding the peace of

mind needed to actively participate. However, she still partook in an interview regarding

her CA. Below is a table which shows the different levels of participation among the user

pool.

Number Age Gender Exercises read Exercises completed

1 65+ Male 7 7

2 75+ Male 7 7

3 75+ Female 2 1

4 75+ Male 7 1

5 75+ Female 1 0

6 80+ Female 7 1

7 55+ Anonymous 7 7

Table 2: The different participation levels of the users.

4.1.2 Rough start

The interviews made it very clear that the first two exercises were the most challenging

during the week, especially the second one. Unfortunately, they proved to be difficult

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enough to make multiple respondents give up on the exercises in the very beginning. The

biggest hinderance was shown to be the installation of Firefox, which was repeatedly

mentioned in the interviews. A common fear was that usage of an unknown software like

Firefox would possibly hinder them from performing daily, important tasks by the

computer. This fear was further enhanced because of the lockdown that the seniors of

Sweden were going through. The lockdown, initiated as a means of protection from the

covid-19, prevented the users from getting physical help from a friend or relative, which in

turn made them extra wary of making any larger changes to a medium they didn’t fully

understand. A few respondents mentioned how they might have had an easier time with

installing the software if they, at the time of the exercise, had known about the

uninstallation instructions that would be given at the end of the week.

4.1.3 Effects of CSE

The impact of computer experience and CSE was apparent in multiple interviews. All of

those who managed to complete every exercise, had previous computer experience to some

degree. Oftentimes, these individuals had worked closely with computers before

retirement, and thus their CSE were relatively high. The ones who struggled with, or even

failed to complete any number of challenges, always had lesser or no prior computer

experience. The low CSE participants were also the only users that expressed some kind of

dissatisfaction with the exercise instructions. These users generally desired more elaborate

instructions, and stressed that you could never be too detailed when it comes to computer

learning.

4.1.4 Computer language

Computer language is a very real thing that many of us everyday computer-users know

almost as well as our own native language. However, for a person that uses the computer

to a very limited extent, this language might be foreign. This was proven to be the case for

multiple of the respondents. Words like toolbar, activity bar, tabs etc, caused varied levels

of confusion amongst the users. To address this issue, the idea of a “computer lexicon” was

brought up, where the user could check the meaning and name of every term or window.

4.2 Identified opportunities

While some problem areas were identified, opportunities also surfaced during the

interviews.

4.2.1 Good concept

The general opinion on Daglig dator does seem to have been a positive one overall. Every

respondent though that it was a good and needed concept, and its execution through the

prototype was also met with mostly positivity. The words used to describe the website

ranged from “okay” to “very good”. Even the respondents that didn’t manage to complete

every exercise, still saw the need of such a service. This goes to show the lack of similar

services that currently exists, especially in Sweden, and how most known computer

education for elderly is handled through physical courses here. Two respondents even said

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that they wished there were more exercises, and one of them mentioned how he would come

back to the site in the future if he needed a refresher on a specific topic.

4.2.2 Design and composition

The single most successful element of the website prototype seems to have been the overall

design and composition. Every participant praised at least one area of this aspect in some

way, which could be the clear design, the language used, or the well-balanced length of the

different exercises. Needless to say, it’s clear that established UX-principles for the elderly,

combined with the CA-reducing principles of Dos Santos and Santana (2018), results in a

very successful design that supports the needs of the user, and also provides them with the

tools required to reduce their CA.

4.2.3 Security and other important themes

As have been previously mentioned, the overarching theme of the exercises presented at

the platform, was security. The interviews proved that this focus was appreciated by the

users, as everyone though that security was the most important topic to cover through the

exercises. Another important subject that was mentioned by two users were technical

aspects of the computer. These users felt the need to know more about how the computer

functioned, in order to feel truly safe when operating it. While I didn’t have any specific

exercises related to technical computer theory, I did try to motivate the user’s actions

during the exercises through explanatory text, and not simply tell them where to click.

However, exercises purely focused on the technicalities of computers and hard grasped

subjects like internet, might be a subject worth looking into for the future. Other important

subjects that was mentioned by one respondent each, were economy, communication and

information gathering.

5. Discussion

5.1 Evaluating the principles

It’ must first be said that Daglig dator is the result of my own interpretations of Dos Santos

and Santana’s points regarding how to reduce CA. As mentioned earlier, the points are

never given a clear context of how they should be utilized, and thus it’s very much open for

discussion in what way, or even context, these points should be addressed. The purpose of

my study was to test if it was possible to create an effective, online-education tool for

reduced CA amongst the elderly, by using the principles of Dos Santos and Santana as a

guide. As has been shown, both problems and opportunities were identified in the process,

but often these problems were not directly related to the principles, but instead my inability

to find a clear way of translating specific principles into a WordPress prototype. If the

problems are fixed, it does seem plausible to create a functioning tool for CA reduction, as

both research and the result of the study, points towards this being the case. Multiple

respondents mentioned how they had gained new knowledge from using the website, and

a few ones felt that they indeed had improved their CSE to some extent, even after just a

week. My finished prototype was far from flawless, but through multiple iterative design

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processes I believe it could be improved upon, until the problem areas have been

successfully eradicated. With that said, I do believe that Dos Santos and Santana’s

principles indeed can be used as a way to guide design towards reduced CA.

5.2 Addressing the problem areas

5.2.1 A smoother beginning

The most glaring flaw was the tough introductory exercises. This was purely a mistake on

my behalf, and not a mistake related to Dos Santos and Santanas principles. In fact, one of

their points is “first good experience”, which I have interpreted as that the first impression

of the technology should be positive. Indeed, I tried very hard to create a first good

experience by keeping a friendly atmosphere, a slow pace and plenty of instructions.

Nevertheless, the results show that I could have made a better job here, so let’s now look at

potential solutions that could’ve been applied.

In future iterations of the prototype, the first two exercises would have to be changed in

some way or another, in order to create a more welcoming atmosphere for new users. One

way to achieve this could be by putting a few theoretical exercises in the very beginning of

the week. This was actually a suggestion by one of the respondents. By going for this

approach, the respondent would be able to complete the first exercise, no matter the skill

level of the user, and in doing so also reap the reward of a small confidence boost. This

would in turn make the next exercise easier. Another option could be to simply cut out the

anti-virus-part of the first exercise, and instead replace it with more descriptive text. The

anti-virus-part could then instead act as exercise two, which would allow it to be further

expanded upon as well.

5.2.2 Countering different levels of CSE

One topic that I initially struggled with in the beginning of the study, and that resurfaced

during the interviews, was the question of whom the website was designed for. Like Rivinen

(2020) mentions, the elderly is a very broad and heterogenous demographic, and hoping

to create an educational tool that will fit everyone’s skill level is practically impossible. This

became very apparent during the interviews. In a group with as few as seven respondents

there were still a wide range of different skills and needs that had to be addressed. Some

had very low CSE, while some had relatively high. The difference in CSE could easily be

identified through the different levels of participation. This coincides well with current

research on the subject, which has shown that low CSE leads to low completion rates of

challenging tasks (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018; Cooper-Gaiter, 2015; Reneland-Forsman,

2018). With that said, one kind of exercises can clearly not cater to everyone’s needs. In

order to counter this dilemma, one option could be to offer the users different “courses”

that cater do different skill levels, e.g. beginner, intermediate and expert-courses. Another

option could be to create different “course-packages” that all have different themes, like

security, socializing, and creativeness. This would give the user more freedom to choose an

approach that he/she would feel would best suit his/her needs. Maybe the most

manageable approach would be to design the exercises strictly with one specific CA level in

mind. If the target group would consist of low CSE, then a much greater focus on

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instructions would have to be implemented. Similarly, if the audience has high CSE, the

exercises can adopt a more technical approach.

5.3 Plausibility of a purely digital solution

As previously mentioned, the overwhelming majority of computer education aimed at the

elderly, consist of physical classes, and very few of them are completely digital. In almost

all the literature related to CA, the seniors who were able to reduce their anxiety, always

had access to a physical tutor or researcher, that could provide them with assistance on a

personal level (Umeå stadsbibliotek, Cooper-Gaiter, 2015; Reneland-Forsman, 2018;

Nycyk, 2020; Steelman & Wallace, 2017)). While my design suggests that it is indeed

possible to successfully reduce CA without a tutor, it seems like having access to physical

assistance makes the learning process both quicker and less stressful for the user. One

respondent that were among those with the highest CSE, mentioned how some exercises

awoke more questions, that weren’t answered in the instructions. Without a teacher at hand

to answer questions like those, the possible knowledge that could be gained is lost.

Therefore, I’d say that there is definitely possible to design a purely digital solution, but it

likely won’t be as effective as it would be if a physical tutor was accessible.

5.4 Perks of a completely digital solution

There are some perks that are linked to a purely digital educational tool, however. About

half of all respondents mentioned that they tend to ask their children and grandchildren

for computer assistance when needed. As previously mentioned under related research,

this behaviour is a common indicator of low CSE, which unfortunately also worsens the

condition (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018). Fortunately, this gives us a clear indication of

where a well-designed, purely digital educational platform can come in handy. If an

effective digital education could be developed, the need to contact family members

regarding computer problems could be reduced, which in turn would benefit the user’s

CSE. In a similar vein, by allowing the elderly to educate themselves, education can be

received directly from the user’s own home, which in turn would grant more users access

to the service.

One unfortunate truth regarding the treatment of CA, is that those suffering the most

are more or less impossible to reach out to. This was a theme that I encountered both

through research, but also during the interviews (Umeå stadsbibliotek, 2019). An

excessively high CA leads to a complete isolation from computers and ICT in general.

5.5 CA and embarrassment

As have been mentioned multiple times now, CA and CSE is strongly connected to feelings.

One of the many feelings I noticed among some respondents, both during my introductory

sessions at the library, as well as during the interviews, was that of embarrassment. This

feeling of embarrassment have been mentioned before in several studies, and is often

triggered when an elderly person is discussing technicalities with a younger person that has

more knowledge on the subject (Dos Santos & Santana, 2018; Umeå stadsbibliotek, 2019).

The older person is then reminded of the stereotype of elders knowing nothing about

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technology, and thus his/her perceived CSE is quickly weakened. For example, most of the

respondents didn’t refer to their condition as CA - not before nor during interviews.

Instead, many respondents simply said that they experience some problems with the

computer, but it’s not really anxiety. Whether this was caused by the respondents not fully

grasping the concept of CA, or because they felt embarrassed about admitting it, is hard to

tell. However, the related research on the topic points to the latter case being true (Dos

Santos & Santana, 2018). Nevertheless, after seeing how few respondents referred to their

condition as CA, I decided to not mention CA in the interviews. Instead I simply asked

about their relationship with their computer, and later also whether they had gained

anything from the exercises.

5.6 Possibility of gamification

The majority of the respondents mentioned that their computer use is limited to a small

number of key activities. These usually included necessary activities like accounting, bill

payment and information gathering. This suggests that many elderly people view their

computer as nothing more than a necessary evil – a complex machine that is needed in

order to access necessary services to avoid digital exclusion. This is also the stance I took

when designing my exercises. I wanted to focus strictly on important aspects that would

educate the user, and not so much on the fun when doing it. However, multiple sources

does mention the importance of fun when learning computer skills (Umeå stadsbibliotek,

2018; Miller, 2013). By introducing elements that can spark joy, or put a greater reward

into the learning outcome, it’s possible that the seniors would partake in the exercises to a

greater extent.

5.7 The future of Daglig dator

There’s also the question regarding what the possible future would be for Daglig dator.

Practically speaking, the prototype has no future in its current form. I have no further plans

of developing the concept, and the web domain will cease to exist at the end of 2020.

However, this doesn’t rule out the possibilities of a spiritual successor to the website. I do

indeed hope that my findings regarding the possibilities and challenges of designing digital

education for the elderly, can spur further research, or even the development of an effective

educational platform that can successfully reach out to seniors that experience CA.

It has been readily proven both from previous research on the topic, as well as my own

result, that seniors do prefer having physical teachers when partaking in computer training.

Therefore, Daglig dator could act as a complement to usual computer classes or IT meetings

for seniors. The participants would then do daily computer related exercises from home,

each day of the week, but then also attend physical meetings with tutors and other seniors

at specific days, where they can discuss what they have learnt and potential questions that

have arisen. I believe this would be a very good strategy of educating the elderly, as it

combines daily exercise with personal tutoring. However, further research would have to

be conducted on the topic before any conclusions can be made.

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5.8 Limitations

5.8.1 Effects of covid-19

The outbreak of the covid-19 had a major impact on all of our lives, but the elderly as a

demographic were among those that were hit the hardest, due to they being a part of the

risk group. This unfortunate event created unexpected obstacles for my study, as well as for

the respondents taking part in it. By the time I had just started searching for respondents,

all senior activities began to get cancelled one after one. This made it practically impossible

to reach out to any more respondents, as contacting senior associations online had already

proven to be fruitless. Because of this, I was left with the bare minimum of respondents in

the end.

As a means to protect themselves from the virus, the elderly population of Sweden were

recommended to stay at home as much as possible, and avoid contact with others. This self-

isolation proved to have clear negative effects on multiple users, especially those with

strong negative CSE. Two respondents chose to halt their active participation at the second

exercise, because they were afraid that they would fail to install or understand Firefox to a

degree where it could hinder the completion of important computer-based tasks. This fear

was enhanced because of the lockdown, which prevented the users from getting personal

assistance from a computer savvy family member or friend. In a similar manner, a working

computer became so much more needed during lockdown, due to other sources of

information and assistance was being cut off. The low CSE users therefore chose to keep

their default settings, which they knew worked. It’s therefore very likely that the result of

the study would have been different if the covid-19 crisis had never happened.

5.8.2 WordPress limitations

One of the most limiting factors when designing the website was the fact that I built it using

WordPress. My reason for choosing this tool was because of my lacking knowledge of

website programming, and the rather tight timeframe of my study. And while WordPress

is a great tool to quickly get a website up and running, regardless of your skill level when it

comes to programming, its simplicity is also its biggest weakness. Multiple times I felt

severely limited to what I could do with the few design options that were available to me.

Simple options such as the ability to freely change the font, size, and the location of certain

elements on the site, where unfortunately non-existent – at least without the use of plug-

ins. These plug-ins were also hidden behind a quite steep paywall, which prevented me

from using them. While I tried to make the most of the few options that I had available, I

believe a better and more efficient design could be achieved if the website would be created

from scratch, through html and CSS programming. One of the most obvious flaws was the

menu at the top of the screen, which I though looked both unorganized and way to small. I

was also unable to remove certain text elements that were part of the default blog-post

design structure. These included sharing buttons for social media, and a comment field.

5.8.3 Short timeframe

One of the biggest limitations of my study is the short timeframe during which the exercises

took place. I’m very aware that one week is not nearly enough time to experience any

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significant change in CA, as a lot more training and repetition is needed (Dos Santos &

Santana, 2018). The reasons behind limiting the exercises to a week, have to do with both

time constraints and state of the world at the time of writing the thesis. I had less than half

a year of time to plan, execute and analyse the result of the study, which forced me to put

some clear boundaries for the project. As has been previously discussed, the spring of 2020

was also the scene of the covid-19 outbreak, which made my entire research situation very

uncertain. Nevertheless, if a similar study were to be conducted again, I’d definitely

encourage the use of a wider timespan of exercises, preferably at least a few weeks or even

a month. Granted, this would require a lot more work from the authors side, as the creation

of well-balanced exercises is a time-consuming endeavour, no matter what design

principles are followed.

5.8.4 Lacking participation

The lacklustre participation in the exercises can be seen both as a limitation, but also as a

proof of an unfinished design that just have gone through its first iteration, and that now

would have to be improved upon. Naturally, one could collect more valuable data if the

number of participants had been greater.

5.8.5 Personal relations

It’s also worth mentioning that one of the respondents were close to me personally. This

participant was my backup-respondent, and would only by deployed as a last resort if the

total user pool went under the minimum level of seven. Unfortunately, this did indeed

happen, which forced me to use my backup respondent. While this user did suffer from CA,

and were given the same instructions and evaluation methods as the others, it’s important

to consider the possibility of personal influence.

5.9 AdBlock ethics

One could argue that the inclusion of AdBlock in my exercises would raise some ethical

dilemmas. During exercise two, I do encourage the user to install a software that would

block all advertisements on a website, and thereby also limit the profit the site would make.

This is a matter that would have to be further explored if my website were to be expanded

upon. While I do believe that less ads would greatly benefit an elderly user, due to there

being less distractions, the elderly user should also be informed about what AdBlock does

to the site and what consequences it has to the domain owner. This would allow the user to

make the decision themselves, regarding whether they wanted to utilize the tool or not.

6. Conclusion

In this paper, I’ve described the process of designing and evaluating a website prototype

with the purpose of helping elderly people reducing their CA. The design choices of the

prototype and its exercises is based on Dos Santos and Santana’s list of points that should

be promoted when working towards reduced CA, as well as current UX principles for senior

design. The results show that the design has potential, and that the Dos Santos and

Santana’s principles indeed can be used as a guide when designing for reduce CA. However,

23

the design was not perfect, and some adjustments, mostly related to the initial difficulty of

the exercises, needs to be made. The clear design along with the overall focus on security

within the exercises, were among the most appreciated contents. The website also has

potential to be improved upon through gamification elements, and the possibility of

offering different difficulty levels on the exercises, in order to cater to different levels of

CSE and CA. Finally, the study needs to be conducted over a longer duration of time before

any true conclusions can be made regarding the effects on CA and CSE.

6.1 Future Research

Future research could take my design and try to improve upon it, by using similar design

and evaluation methods. It would also be valuable to conduct a similar study to mine during

a longer period of time, in order to get a more valuable result. Another way could be to take

my original idea of using both a smartphone as well as a computer, to see if the learning

and CA outcome would be any different. One respondent did mention during the interview

that two screens would indeed have made it easier, instead of having to constantly switch

between tabs and windows.

A more distant but also very interesting idea would be to take the whole senior

education-concept and put it on a smartphone instead of a computer. How can we design

educational tools that seeks to teach the elderly about smartphones and tablets? As the

number of smartphone users increases, so does the need for a learning platform on the

medium (Anderson & Perrin, 2017).

7. References

Anderson, M., & Perrin, A. (2017). Tech adoption climbs among older adults. Pew

research center, 2017, 1-22.

Andersson, J. (2019). Svenskarna och internet 2019: undersökning om svenskarnas

internetvanor. Internetstiftelsen.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.

Psychological review, 84(2), 191.

Cooper-Gaiter, E. D. (2015). Computer anxiety and computer self-efficacy of older adults.

Correia, C., Oliveira, E., & Nunes, F. (2020). Using illustration to create more inclusive user

interfaces for older adults. Interactions, 27(2), 79-81.

Di Giacomo, D., Ranieri, J., D’Amico, M., Guerra, F., & Passafiume, D. (2019).

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