Age of Users

Software should be designed for diverse end users particularly because people of different ages, genders and/or different levels of digital literacy use software differently. Understanding the needs of diverse end users is an essential step in developing successful software. This article explores how people from different age groups behaved when they used e-commerce applications as a case study to develop an age bias evaluation tool. We chose to focus on age as the software industry is dominated by a younger workforce, and currently there are no systematic methods to evaluate potential age bias in software. We chose to explore this in the e-commerce domain as e-commerce is increasingly becoming a necessity for many people of all ages, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown during 2020. Following the InclusiveMag methodology, this study aimed to determine if there are specific requirements for different generations, and if there is, to develop a method to evaluate age bias in software. We explored the views of people from different age groups about e-commerce applications using semi-structured interviews and field notes when observing people as they used an e-commerce application. The interviewees were purposively sampled from well recognised generational classifications based on age, including Generation Z (Gen Z) and Generation Y (Gen Y) (combined), Generation X (Gen X), Baby Boomers (BB), and the Silent Generation (SG). Based on four different facets we built personas to represent the different age groups and performed a cognitive walkthrough with the personas for two e-commerce applications. The results are helpful to directly inform the development of an age-inclusiveness Magnifier (AgeMag) to help identify age bias within e-commerce applications.

J. McIntosh et al., "Evaluating Age Bias In E-commerce," 2021 IEEE/ACM 13th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), 2021, pp. 31-40, doi: 10.1109/CHASE52884.2021.00012.

Investigators:

Dr Tanjila Kanij, Dr Jenny McIntosh

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