Understanding Age and Technology Experience Differences in Use of Prior Knowledge for Everyday Technology Interactions
Marita A. O'Brien, Wendy A. Rogers, Arthur D. Fisk · 2012 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/2141943.2141947
Summary
This study investigates how people of different ages and technology experience levels draw upon prior knowledge when using everyday technologies. The researchers conducted a 10-day diary study with 30 participants divided into three groups: younger adults (ages 18-28), high-technology older adults (ages 65-75 with extensive tech experience), and low-technology older adults (ages 65-75 with limited tech experience). Participants recorded all technology interactions in handwritten journals, followed by structured interviews exploring how they achieved success or resolved problems. The study builds on Don Norman's distinction between "Knowledge in the Head" (KiH)—information from prior experience stored in memory—and "Knowledge in the World" (KiW)—external information like instructions, labels, and help from others. The researchers identified four types of prior knowledge that participants drew upon: technical knowledge (how to operate devices), functional knowledge (understanding task goals and procedures), strategic knowledge (approaches for managing interactions and solving problems), and self knowledge (awareness of one's own abilities and limitations). The methodology captured naturalistic technology use across ten categories including entertainment, kitchen, PC/Internet, shopping, transportation, and health care technologies. This approach revealed authentic patterns of how different user groups leverage their existing knowledge rather than observing behavior in artificial laboratory settings.
Key findings
Technology repertoires for younger adults and high-tech older adults were remarkably similar in breadth, with both groups using an average of 27-30 different technologies over the study period. Differences reflected life-stage needs rather than capability: older adults used more kitchen and health care technologies, while younger adults used more PC/Internet technologies. Low-tech older adults used substantially fewer technologies overall (average 19), with the largest gap in PC/Internet use, but they still demonstrated significant technology engagement in other categories. Prior knowledge was the most common attribution for successful technology interactions across all groups (49% of successes), but the pattern of problems differed significantly by group. High-tech older adults attributed over 25% of their problems to insufficient prior knowledge—they expected to know how to use technologies and were frustrated when they didn't. Younger adults more frequently attributed problems to interference from prior knowledge: expectations transferred incorrectly from similar technologies. Low-tech older adults reported the fewest problems, partly because they strategically limited technology use to familiar devices and deliberately chose low-distraction environments. Problem resolution most commonly required combining KiH with KiW (46% of resolutions). When instructions alone proved insufficient, participants used systematic trial-and-error guided by their prior experience to find solutions.
Relevance
This research provides essential guidance for designing technologies that accommodate diverse user backgrounds—a core accessibility concern. The finding that technology experience matters more than age alone challenges assumptions that older adults are inherently less capable technology users. Instead, designers should understand what prior knowledge their target users actually possess. For accessibility practitioners, the four-category framework (technical, functional, strategic, self knowledge) offers a practical tool for user research. Understanding that low-tech users possess substantial functional knowledge—they know what tasks they want to accomplish—suggests that interfaces should leverage goal-oriented language rather than technical terminology. The study's implications for feedforward (telling users what to expect) and feedback (confirming what happened) are directly applicable to accessible design. Clear, well-designed feedforward can substitute for missing prior knowledge, particularly important for users encountering new technologies or accessibility features for the first time.
Tags: older adults · prior knowledge · technology experience · aging · human factors · inclusive design
Standards referenced: ISO 20282-1