Enabling accessibility through multimodality?: interaction modality choices of older adults

In this work, we identify influencing factors on modality choices of older adults. In detail, we investigated when and why older adults prefer speech over touch interaction and vice versa when interacting with a mobile multimodal health and wellbeing service. We conducted a study with 19 older adults using a mobile application with a duration of three to six weeks. Due to this long duration of the study we were able to gain highly external valid insights as our results are based on real world experiences. We identify additional influencing factors within the areas of user characteristics, contextual factors and perceived system characteristics. We outline the impact of the factors and highlight the importance of several of these factors to enable accessible user interfaces. Our results provide first steps towards a more holistic model of modality choices taking into account interdependencies of different factors.