Processing Speed and Vocabulary are Related to Older Adults' Internet Experiences

Some cognitive declines commonly occur with aging; yet they are seldom taken into account by Website designers and User Experience UX researchers. In this empirical study, we compared younger adults, middle-age adults, high-functioning older adults, and low-functioning older adults to examine whether there is a relationship between aspects of cognition and performance when using a Website. Performance was measured by accuracy percent of tasks completed successfully, efficiency mean time to complete tasks and self-rated satisfaction, three commonly used usability metrics. Results suggest that processing speed and vocabulary may be related to Internet performance. Specifically, older adults with faster processing speed and/or high vocabulary may perform better than their lower-functioning counterparts. More importantly, these older adults perform similar to younger adults.