A Qualitative Study of Older Adults' Acceptance of New Functions on Smart Phones and Tablets

摘要

This study examined why older adults accepted or rejected new functions and how they made their decision. 44 older adults were asked to use eight functions on two smart phones and two tablets. Then, they were interviewed about their acceptance of functions. They had the lowest acceptance of the mir-croblog function. Finally, older adults reported reasons of accepting or rejecting functions. The result was a model to represent older adults' decision process, which was influenced by eight factors. This decision process generated four major findings. First, substitutes seemed to be a big obstacle to older adults' acceptance of new functions on smart phones and tablets. Second, openness influenced whether older adults stressed the usefulness of a new function. Third, contexts and lifestyles influenced older adults' judgment of usefulness. Fourth, older adults seemed to tolerate some complexity, but it should not be more than they could handle after learning.