Enhancing User Interaction in a Nutritional Educational Package for the Elderly Using 3d Animation

Most of the elderly have difficulties with computer technology. They lack computer literacy, and at the same time, have physiological changes that are associated with impaired perception, cognition, and other social aspects. These limitations can be lessened using multimedia elements to assist in their interaction with computers. One of these multimedia elements is 3D animation. We have incorporated 3D animation into a digital educational nutritional package, which was designed following the design guidelines for older adults, for better interface user interaction. An experiment was carried out to measure user acceptance; and a comparison was made between the digital package and a booklet. Questionnaires were distributed to six elderly subjects, aged 60 to 75 years old. Overall, the results showed that the 3D animation was helpful in facilitating an understanding of the content. The comparison experiment involved ten respondents that were divided into the experiment (digital package) and control (booklet) groups. Each group was given a task and the completion time for each was recorded. The findings indicate that the content exploration using the digital package was faster than using the traditional booklet. Of the respondents, 60% from the experiment group were able to access the content in less than two minutes; compared to 40% from the control group. These initial findings indicate the possibility of using a digital education package, and as such, should be explored further with larger samples and modules, in order to increase the nutritional and health knowledge and awareness among the elderly.