Oops, Wrong Number: Exploring Age and Cellular Telephone Dialing Performance

One challenge that faces older adults today is the pervasive trend in miniaturized technology. This trend has permeated the cellular phone industry and resulted in technology that has not only become smaller in terms of size, but slimmer resulting in flat-smooth keypads. The current study examined differences in dialing performance between keypads with raised-rubber keys and flat-smooth keys as a function of age. The results revealed that both younger and older adults performed significantly better in terms of dialing accuracy and dialing time with the raised-rubber keypad. Furthermore, older adults improved significantly more with the raised-rubber keypad than did younger adults. Findings, also, revealed that older adults committed more errors than younger adults. These findings demonstrate how the trend of miniaturization and smooth keypads may potentially alienate the largest growing population in the U.S. (i.e., older adults) with respect to usability.