ExplorAR: Assisting Older Adults to Learn Smartphone Apps through AR-powered Trial-and-Error with Interactive Guidance

TL;DR

ExplorAR is an augmented reality system designed to help older adults learn smartphone apps through interactive trial-and-error with real-time guidance, improving engagement and confidence compared to traditional tutorials.

Contribution

This paper introduces a novel AR-based trial-and-error learning system specifically tailored for older adults, with empirical evaluation demonstrating its effectiveness.

Findings

Enhanced learning experience and engagement for older adults.

Increased confidence in exploring new smartphone operations.

AR system outperforms traditional video tutorials.

Abstract

Older adults tend to encounter challenges when learning to use new smartphone apps due to age-related cognitive and physical changes. Compared to traditional support methods such as video tutorials, trial-and-error allows older adults to learn to use smartphone apps by making and correcting mistakes. However, it remains unknown how trial-and-error should be designed to empower older adults to use smartphone apps and how well it would work for older adults. Informed by the guidelines derived from prior work, we designed and implemented ExplorAR, an AR-based trial-and-error system that offers real-time and situated visual guidance in the augmented space around the smartphone to empower older adults to explore and correct mistakes independently. We conducted a user study with 18 older adults to compare ExplorAR with traditional video tutorials and a simplified version of ExplorAR. Results show that the AR-supported trial-and-error method enhanced older adults' learning experience by fostering deeper cognitive engagement and improving confidence in exploring unknown operations.