"I knew that, I was just testing you": Understanding Older Adults' Impression Management Tactics During Usability Studies
Rachel L. Franz, Ron Baecker, Khai N. Truong · 2018 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3226115
Summary
This paper investigates how older adults (65+) engage in impression management (IM) during usability studies—conscious or unconscious behaviors to present themselves favorably to researchers. While IM is known to affect research validity, its specific manifestations in technology usability testing with older adults had not been systematically studied, despite evidence that IM tendencies increase with age, partly to counter negative stereotypes about aging and technology competence. The researchers conducted two mixed-methods usability studies with older adults (mean ages 82.75 and 69.63) testing communication software on smartwatches and tablets. Participants were recruited from a long-term care facility and retirement community. The studies varied whether participants knew the software was developed by the researcher versus a third party, and whether they used concurrent think-aloud (CTA) or co-discovery (CD) techniques with another participant. Using an adapted IM framework from organizational psychology, the researchers coded all participant utterances for IM tactics. They identified tactics across three goal categories: minimizing good impressions (supplication—appearing weak to get help), minimizing bad impressions (excuses, justifications, blaming, burying mistakes), and maximizing good impressions (exemplification, self-promotion, ingratiation). The title quote exemplifies "burying"—a participant denying they made a mistake by claiming they were testing the researcher. The research also examined whether participants' IM tendencies (measured via the BIDR-16 scale) correlated with their usability ratings on SUS and UMUX scales, finding moderate negative correlations for third-party software—higher IM participants gave lower usability scores, possibly blaming the software for their difficulties.
Key findings
The most frequent IM tactic was supplication—participants portraying themselves as helpless or dependent to involve the researcher, asking questions like "Should I click somebody now?" or "Is that what you want me to do?" rather than exploring the interface independently. This reflects low technology self-efficacy among older adults, even when actual competence may be higher. The second most common tactic was exemplification/self-focused IM—doing more than necessary to appear like a "model participant." Participants created elaborate realistic scenarios with fictional contacts, sent detailed messages, and asked about features beyond the test tasks. This can actually benefit researchers by revealing mental models and imagined use contexts. Blaming was common and took two forms: blaming the technology ("I have no idea what this is supposed to do") and blaming the researcher ("How long were you going to let me sit there?"). Unlike typical usability testing assumptions that users blame themselves, older adults frequently externalized blame—possibly as a defensive strategy against appearing incompetent. The studies found no significant difference in IM frequency between CTA and CD conditions, though in CD, participants directed supplication at each other rather than the researcher. There was also no significant difference in IM based on whether participants knew the software author was the researcher, contrary to expectations that participants would be more deferential to researcher-developed software.
Relevance
This research has direct implications for anyone conducting usability studies or user research with older adults. The finding that older adults frequently use supplication means researchers may underestimate participants' actual capabilities—the constant requests for help may reflect impression management rather than genuine confusion. Researchers should encourage participants and remind them of tasks they have already accomplished. The blaming tactic contradicts standard usability wisdom that "users blame themselves." With older adults, externalized blame can actually be valuable data about interface affordances and pain points, rather than something to discount. For accessibility practitioners, the exemplification finding offers a practical technique: older adults naturally create rich usage scenarios without prompting, so researchers can harness this tendency rather than scripting artificial tasks. Their invented scenarios reveal authentic mental models and anticipated use contexts. The correlation between IM scores and usability ratings suggests researchers should consider administering IM measures (like BIDR-16) alongside subjective usability scales when working with older adults, to help interpret results. More broadly, the research highlights that standard usability methods developed primarily with younger populations may need adaptation for aging populations facing stereotype threat around technology competence.
Tags: older adults · aging · usability testing · research methodology · user research · accessibility evaluation
Standards referenced: SUS · UMUX