A comparative study of unimodal and multimodal interactions for digital TV remote control mobile application among elderly

Abstract

A research was conducted to study user interactions design for the TV remote control applications that are preferable among the elderly. Now-a-days smart home concept is widely accepted around the globe. Many applications were developed based on smart home concepts, such as smart remote-control applications for TVs and air conditioners. These applications were helpful in our daily life. However, the elderly tends not to use these applications because of the complexity of the processes and interaction design that is unfriendly. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine which interaction design is preferable for the elderly, enhancing the elderly experience in using the TV remote control application besides encouraging them to use one in daily life and keep up with new technologies. In this paper, the two types of new interaction designs – a touch-based only (unimodal) interaction and multimodal interaction prototypes and an existing TV Remote Control application were compared by conducting usability testing of these three applications on the elderly. Three parameters were considered to compare these three interaction designs: task completion time, error rate, and satisfaction. Also, using usability testing’s data collection, statistical analysis was conducted to find out which type of interaction is preferable by the elderly. Ten elderlies participated in the usability testing carried out. The results show a significant difference in these three interactions designs regarding task completion time and satisfaction, but not error rate. After considering usability testing and analyses conducted, the elderly prefers a unimodal interaction design in the TV Remote Control application. Nevertheless, the unimodal interaction was not the typical “tapping buttons” user interface in existing applications. Instead, the favourable interaction design was the one that involved swiping gestures to replace several features that were implemented using buttons on existing TV remote control applications.