Effectiveness of communication process support for senior citizens with information machines

Abstract

Senior citizens using IT services have two types of barriers; difficulty of machine use and lack of motivation to use service. External support is necessary to lower these two barriers by enhancing interface usability and promotion of use. In this paper, experiments that were performed to prove the effectiveness of such supports were discussed. The results of the experiment showed that promotion of communication among users was effective to lower both of the two barriers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.