Eye Tracking to Understand Impact of Aging on Mobile Phone Applications

Usage of smartphones and tablets has been increasing rapidly with multi-touch interaction and powerful configurations. Performing tasks on mobile phones become more complex as people age, thereby increasing their cognitive workload. In this context, we conducted an eye tracking study with 50 participants between the age of 20 to 60 years and above, living in Bangalore, India. This paper focuses on visual nature of interaction with mobile user interfaces. The study aims to investigate how aging affects user experience on mobile phones while performing complex tasks and estimate cognitive workload using eye tracking metrics. The study consisted of five tasks that were performed on an android mobile phone under naturalistic scenarios using eye tracking glasses. We recorded ocular parameters like fixation rate, saccadic rate, average fixation duration, maximum fixation duration, and standard deviation of pupil dilation for left and right eyes, respectively, for each participant. Results from our study show that aging has a bigger effect on performance of using mobile phones irrespective of any complex task given to them. We noted that participants aged between 50 and 60+ years had difficulties in completing tasks and showed increased cognitive workload. They took longer fixation duration to complete tasks which involved copy-paste operations. Further, we identified design implications and provided design recommendations for designers and manufacturers.