Wearable Computing for Older
Adults – Initial Insights into
Head-Mounted Display Usage
Kai Kunze
Osaka Prefecture University
Sakai, JapanKai.Kunze@gmail.com

Niels Henze
University of Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
Niels.Henze@vis.unistuttgart.deKoichi Kise
Osaka Prefecture University
Sakai, Japan
Kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp

Abstract
With recent interest in industry, wearable computers withhead-mounted displays are about to become mainstream.
As it is typical for novel technologies, development isdirected towards early adopters. This typically excludes
special target groups such as older adults with age related
special needs. However, it is necessary to consider theirrequirements when the technology matures, as they canbenefit from wearable computing. In this paper we present
an explorative, qualitative study with three older adults
that used a wearable computer with a head mounted
display during everyday activities. We derive requirementsfrom the usage of existing applications, describe emerging
usage patterns, highlight promising applications, and thereaction of the public.

Author Keywords
Head Mounted Display, Wearable Computing,Accessibility, Older Adults, Google Glass, Universal Design
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personalor classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or
distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this noticeand the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party componentsof this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.
Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
UbiComp’14 Adjunct, September 13-17, 2014, Seattle, WA, USA
ACM 978-1-4503-3047-3/14/09.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2638728.2638747

ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: UserInterfaces Graphical User Interfaces

Introduction
Through the recent interest by industry, wearable
computers with head-mounted displays are about to hit
the consumer market. Older adults are usually notconsidered when novel technologies are introduced as they
are the typical not the early adopters [5]. However,wearable computing offers enormous potential for older
adults beyond the use cases directed towards the whole
population. Age related special needs can be addressedusing digital devices. Yet, the specific requirements ofolder adults must be considered while developing the userinterface, use cases, and application scenarios.
In this paper we describe the early insights about theusage of wearable computer with head-mounted display byolder adults we gained from a user study. We conducted
the study with the help of three participants that used ahead mounted display during everyday activities for twodays each. From semi-structured interviews andshadowing participants during device usage, we derive
usage patterns and requirements as well as potential
application scenarios.

Overview

Figure 1: Participants during thestudy wearing used apparatus.
We asked them for consent toinclude the photos without
blurring their faces as this wouldhave also blurred the apparatus.

We provided a wearable computer with head-mounted
display to the participants and used three approaches togain insights. We asked participants to perform a numberof actions and observed their behavior. In addition, weconducted semi-structured interviews to explore theiropinion about different aspects of the device. Finally, weshadowed them in the course of two days during theirdaily activities and accompanied two participants during a
shopping tour. During all activities, participants’interactions with the system were automatically recordedby the wearable computer. Two female aged over 60 andover 80 years as well as one male subject aged over 80
years took part in the study.

For the wearable computer we used a Google Glass with aportable battery. As Glass can be charged while in use
this ensured that the system was usable over a whole day.
Glass was tethered to a Nexus 5 phone to provide network
access and to help participants in case of problems
utilizing a screencast from Glass to the phone.
At the beginning of the study we introduced the wearable
computer and provided an overview about it’s capabilities
using the screencast to the Nexus 5 phone. After theintroduction we asked participants to use the following
actions: navigation through the live card interface, taking
a picture/video, starting/stopping a stop watch and timer,
reading the weather forecast, starting navigation,
searching the internet, using the ”WordLense” translatefeature, retrieving a cooking recipe from ”AllTheCooks”.
The participants select the task once with the touch
interface on the side of Glass and a second time
”hands-free” using ”head wake up” (tilting the head backover 30 degrees) and voice command. Afterwards, theparticipants were asked to read text in different sizes andvarying colors from the wearable display. After
participants got familiar with the device by accessing its
functionalities, we conducted a semi-structured interview.
The following topics served as guidance throughout theinterview: usability of the current hardware/functionality,
potential improvements to the current design, futureapplication scenarios. After the interviews, eachparticipant used the device for 3 days (around 8 hours perday) during everyday activities. The activities included:
house work, gardening, cooking, eating, relaxing, cleaning,and working in a wood workshop. In addition, we
accompanied 2 participants while they went shopping in alarger German city for three hours each. After the 2 days

of usage, we conducted another semi-structured interview
discussing the experience of the participants, usability of
the current system, current and future use cases andapplication scenarios.

Results
All participants mentioned that the current functionalityof the device is limited. We assume reasons are in the
English only menu and bad to no Internet connectivity
during usage. Two of the participants live in a small
village with bad mobile Internet coverage.
As all participants are used to wear glasses, they got easily
accustomed to carry Glass. All confirmed that thehead-mounted display was not hindering them performing
everyday tasks. Only one participant voiced concerns as
the device got unusually hot after a longer usage sessionof recording video and displaying directions.

Figure 2: Screenshots fromGlass. Top picture shows theweather forecast where the lightgrey font color is hard to read.
The picture in the middle shows
the instructions to the ”wink forphoto” feature that was also hard
to read for the participants.
Screenshots from taking picturesusing Glass: The 3rd picture
shows the first shot taken tohigh, next the last shows thescene the participant wanted torecord.

All participants were able to read from the screen. During
the simple reading test, all participants could read text offont sizes of 40px and higher on the 640 x 360 screen if awhite font on a black background was used (bestcontrast). However, other font colors were problematicand needed larger sizes to be legible. Especially the lightgrey font color used by some standard Glass applications(see Figure 2) was hard to read for 2 participants.
Participants had difficulties to take the pictures they
intended. Glass seems to be optimized for taking photos
in a slight distance (e.g. taking tourist pictures).
However, participants mostly wanted to take pictures toremember what they were doing (e.g. what things they
had in the hand). It took a while for them to realize thatthe camera won’t make a photo of what they see(depicted in Figure 2).

It was difficult for the two older participants to use thetouch panel for navigating Glass. The activation tab andscrolling usually works, yet the cancel gesture (”swipingdown”) is more problematic and often not recognized. We
assume this is due to fingers getting dry when getting
older.
The active card display of Glass was intuitive for allparticipants. Yet, the two older users had difficulties touse some of the hierarchical menu structures (e.g. forsettings and doing a video call).
Usage Patterns
All participants used the camera feature the most. A
common use case was memory augmentation. Making
pictures of things they don’t want to forget. For example,
taking a picture of medication, so they can remember that
it was already taken or taking pictures of interesting items
while shopping.
All participants preferred the ”hands free” operations
using the speech interface (although it was in English)compared to the touch interface during homework. Yet,
being in town, participants switched to the touchinterface.
During cooking and house work, the timer provided by
Glass was appreciated by the female participants.
However, it was difficult for them to set the timer using
the current interface, as this involves a hierarchical menu.
Requirements
Although Glass was already designed with this in mind, it
seems font size is not the only thing that matters.
Contrast seems equally important, as participants found itvery difficult to read the light grey fonts used in some ofthe screens provided by Glass.All participants request
intuitive, ”hands-free” interactions. The touch interface
was difficult to use for the two older participants. Apotential reason is that they are not used capacitive touch
devices such as current smartphones.
Derived Application Scenarios
Short Term Memory Augmentation – As we describedabove, participants frequently took pictures to use themas reminder (e.g. taking medication). Using the time card
interface of Glass, it was already easy to check if they
performed the action or task in question by browsing
through the taken pictures. Each picture has also atimestamp with it (see Figure 2).

Figure 3: A participant wearing
Glass during wood work.

Long Term Capture and Access – The participants saw
potential in having a long term capture and accessinterface. Checking how and what they worked on/did a
couple months or even years back. Search on specificactivities (e.g. baking a apple cake) should be possible foraccess. Participants thought other types of indexing (e.g.
location or time) would be not so useful.
Timer and Reminders – Although the interface was not
optimal for them the users already found the timer
application useful. They raised the need for several
simultaneous timers and reminders.
Instructions – For the gardening, cooking and workshop
scenario, the participants would like to get instructions(e.g. ingredient lists, work steps) for more complex tasks
they do not perform often. They prefer the Glass display
to paper or instruction manuals, as they don’t want toclean their hands, stop what they do. Yet, theyemphasized that the instructions need to be easilybrowsable.

Related Work
Figure 4: A participant using thetimer application while cooking.

There is also a lot of work regarding user interface designfor disabled and older adults, a good overview is given byFisk et. al. [2, 1, 4]. Most work evaluating head-mounted
displays use cases for older adults focuses on virtual
reality [4].Today, wearable computers are mostly deployed
in industrial applications [3, 5]. There have been similar
studies for phones or tablets focusing on usage scenarios
and interface design for an aging population [1].

Conclusions and Future WorkIn this paper we conducted, to the best of our knowledge,
the first assessment of wearable computers withhead-mounted display with older adults. We identified anumber of emerging usage patterns, derive firstrequirements, and identify potential applications. As thenext step, we plan to develop an application for ”shortterm” memory augmentation for the Glass platform, as
this application had the highest importance for ourparticipants and easy to do given the current system. We
also aim to explore the hands-free interaction space using
wearable computers with head-mounted displays with a
special focus on older adults.

References[1] Duh, H. B.-L. Senior-friendly technologies: interaction
design for senior users. In Proc. CHI EA (2010).
[2] Fisk, A. D. Designing for older adults: Principles andcreative human factors approaches. CRC press, 2012.
[3] Kunze, K. Does context matter?-a quantitativeevaluation. Pervasive Computing (2009).
[4] Rebola, C. B., and Jones, B. Sympathetic devices:
designing technologies for older adults. In Proc.
SIGDOC (2013).
[5] Tanaka, K., Kunze, K., Iwata, M., and Kise, K.
Memory specsan annotation system on google glass
using document image retrieval. Accepted as Adj.
Ubicomp (2014).