Gestural Interfaces for Elderly Users: Help or Hindrance?

Recent years have seen the dissemination of gestural interface technology in mass consumer products, pioneered most notably by products such as the Apple iPhone or the Nintendo Wii videogame console. Since then, consumer electronics manufactures have included gesture control elements in a whole range of mobile electronic devices, such as laptops, cell phones, PDAs, remote controls, navigation systems and digital cameras. While these interfaces are generally considered to provide a very direct, natural and intuitive way of interacting with a device, it remains unclear whether they also meet the needs and capabilities of a user group that is growing more and more important: the elderly. Demographic, structural and societal changes in most industrialized countries lead to a dramatic change in the percentage of elderly among the population: for example in Germany, 30 years from now, more than one third of the total population will be aged 65 and above [1]. The normal aging process is typically accompanied with visual and auditory impairments, and a decline in working memory, selective attention, and motor control is observed [2]. The interaction with technology thus often confronts elderly people with particular problems, because devices are not designed to accommodate their special needs.