Human Cognitive Measurement as a Metric within Usability Studies

There has been a growing interest in the impact that age and online abilities can have on an individual's experience of using the Internet. However, the reliance on these factors has not shown to be entirely conclusive. The current paper develops previous work in this area by using cognitive factors as a method to further analyse user experience. In an experiment, a comparison was drawn between older and younger adults examining Internet experience and multiple cognitive abilities. Overall, the results show that cognitive factors can be used to account for a substantial amount of disorientation felt by users and that these factors can be used to improve the understanding of reasons surrounding web usability. It is also shown that previous Internet experience and confidence differentially effect older and younger adults' feelings of disorientation, with increased confidence resulting in higher disorientation in younger adults but not older adults.