Age-old Question(naire)s

Older people are an important and growing sector of the population, yet are often excluded by design. It is important to find out more about this user group so that they can be included effectively. As a first step towards this, we carried out a questionnaire and interview study in Scotland with 353 participants over the age of 50, investigating their use of and attitude towards technology. This is a method which can be very useful yet also fraught with difficulties. This paper therefore discusses how it can be used effectively, observing in particular the use of survey interviews in extracting more indepth information. It also describes the study and some of its results, discussing trends in technology use among older people and possible reasons for these trends, noting in particular the effect of technology age and complexity. It also discusses the implications for designers.