Touch-panel Usability for Children

In the past few years, touch panels have increasingly been used in children’s education, and more research has been devoted to the development of electronic schoolbag. However, children often encounter difficulties operating touch screens, possibly due to their relative lack of experience using computers or touch panels, or because of the small size of their hands. This study investigates the drag, zoom and rotation operations of 4.3-inch and 10.1-inch touch panels, aiming to provide recommendations for appropriate movement speed settings. The operating gestures used by child users were also observed. The movement rate of 30 young adults using 4.3-inch and 10 inch touch panels were taken as base values, and compared to the movement rate of 30 other children serving as test subjects. Overall, children performed better on the 10.1-inch panel than on the 4.3-inch panel, thus 10.1-inch panels are recommended for use in electronic schoolbag for children. In addition, results for the children's average drag rate (0.039 inch) and average rotation rate (0.024~0.026inch) on the 10.1-inch screen can be used as a settings reference. Finally, the children were found to all use gestures combining the use of thumb, forefinger and middle finger.