Yu Lin

Personalization and Agency of Digital Immigrants in China

This major research project explored how the design of traditional Internet browsers, which pose increasing interaction constraints to older adults with increasing age, could be stretched to create a more inclusively designed browser to meet their requirements. Specifically, design of the home page of an inclusive browser (given the name ‘iBrowser’) was carried out through a participatory process involving five older adults living in China as a first step towards future development of the full browser. Through two rounds of user-centred design, the effect of adding a personalization feature to the home page was examined. The ability to personalize the home page was found to provide a sense of agency to the older adult Chinese users, which they found welcoming. A new user interface design style (given the name ‘Literal Cards User Interface’) was developed, which could be useful to all users with compromised visual, dexterity and cognitive interaction abilities. http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/809/