A Preliminary Investigation into the Usability of Force Touch Interaction in a Mobile Context

Abstract

This paper details a preliminary evaluation into the usability and universal design of force touch interaction with older users as recently introduced into the Apple iOS9 operating system. The evaluation involved a small group of older users and two typical smartphone tasks. The tasks involved increasing font size and rotating an image on an Apple iPhone with iOS9 installed. The study recorded task times and semi-structured interview responses. The overall results indicated that the new force touch feature can gain good acceptance from older users, but that there were some usability and universal design problems with the feature which hampered the potential of full acceptance by older users.