The increase in complex functionality of technical systems results in new demands on users. With an ever increasing aging population there is a necessity for considering elderly users in design. The described research project investigates how adjustment of mobile phone user interfaces can be used to support older users while interacting. The theoretical framework is a transfer of Baltes’ SOC approach to enhance the older users’ competence in interacting with the technical system. This approach involves three components: selection, optimization, and compensation. The first step of the project is the transfer of the selection mechanism. It states that older users select a subset out of large number of options; resources are focussed on this subset. Whether and how the selection mechanism supports user groups of different ages and with various experiences will be investigated using a wizard-of-oz experiment.
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