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. 2017 Aug 24;12(8):e0180102.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180102. eCollection 2017.

Determinants of user acceptance of a specific social platform for older adults: An empirical examination of user interface characteristics and behavioral intention

Tsai-Hsuan Tsai  1   2   3 , Hsien-Tsung Chang  4   5 , Yan-Jiun Chen  1 , Yung-Sheng Chang  1
Affiliations

Determinants of user acceptance of a specific social platform for older adults: An empirical examination of user interface characteristics and behavioral intention

Tsai-Hsuan Tsai et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The use of the Internet and social applications has many benefits for the elderly, but numerous investigations have shown that the elderly do not perceive online social networks as a friendly social environment. Therefore, TreeIt, a social application specifically designed for the elderly, was developed for this study. In the TreeIt application, seven mechanisms promoting social interaction were designed to allow older adults to use social networking sites (SNSs) to increase social connection, maintain the intensity of social connections and strengthen social experience. This study's main objective was to investigate how user interface design affects older people's intention and attitude related to using SNSs. Fourteen user interface evaluation heuristics proposed by Zhang et al. were adopted as the criteria to assess user interface usability and further grouped into three categories: system support, user interface design and navigation. The technology acceptance model was adopted to assess older people's intention and attitude related to using SNSs. One hundred and one elderly persons were enrolled in this study as subjects, and the results showed that all of the hypotheses proposed in this study were valid: system support and perceived usefulness had a significant effect on behavioral intention; user interface design and perceived ease of use were positively correlated with perceived usefulness; and navigation exerted an influence on perceived ease of use. The results of this study are valuable for the future development of social applications for the elderly.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. TreeIt research structure.
Fig 2
Fig 2. TreeIt system interface: Auto-suggest friends.
Fig 3
Fig 3. TreeIt system interface: Common album function.
Fig 4
Fig 4. TreeIt system interface: Social display function.
Fig 5
Fig 5. TreeIt system interface: Mood display/emotional feedback function.
Fig 6
Fig 6. TreeIt system interface: Hot-topic function.
Fig 7
Fig 7. TreeIt system interface: Recent group function.
Fig 8
Fig 8. TreeIt system interface: Chat function.
Fig 9
Fig 9. Path analysis model for the research hypotheses.
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