Uma metodologia para avaliação da usabilidade de interfaces 3D para idosos

Abstract

Health professionals could use three-dimensional user interfaces as a tool to support elderly's rehabilitation, allowing them entertaining and benefits for the practice of physical and cognitive activities. In this context, it is necessary to establish mechanisms to evaluate these interfaces, to get a balance between functionality, easiness of use and welfare of the user. Our approach aims to propose a usability evaluation method of three-dimensional user interfaces for the elderly. Therefore, we developed a systematic review to identify the techniques and tools used in interventions with the elderly to evaluate virtual reality systems. From the review's results and our previous experience, a method and a questionnaire denominated UQE 3D was developed, wrapping concepts inherent to three-dimensional user interfaces. Our method uses a demographic questionnaire, MEEM and GDS-15 for description and sample selection, and SUS, UQE 3D and interview for the interface's evaluation. For validation, we executed an experiment considering a heterogeneous group with 30 subjects (60+ years), where seven subjects were institutionalized elderly. Results pointed a positive scenario, getting an overall sample mean for the UQE 3D a score of 82.60 (in a range of 1 to 100), where the score for the active elderly was 88.52 and for the institutionalized elderly it was 63.17. The difference between the UQE 3D and the SUS scores did not represent statistically significant, suggesting that the UQE 3D is equivalent to the SUS regarding the evaluation of three-dimensional user interfaces.