Older Women and Digital TV: A Case Study
Sri Kurniawan · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07) · doi:10.1145/1296843.1296897
Summary
This paper from the University of Manchester investigates why digital television (DTV) services are unappealing to older women in the UK, using a Delphi interview technique with a panel of three expert DTV older women users (aged 69, 70, and 75) who were students at the College of Third Age in Greater Manchester. The study was motivated by the UK Government's planned switch-off of analogue television by 2012 and a 2006 survey finding alarmingly low awareness of this transition among older people. The panellists had different DTV setups — Sky subscription, NTL package, and FreeView box — providing varied perspectives. The Delphi method, originally designed for structuring communication among expert panels, was applied here as a novel approach to studying technology adoption by older adults, with no prior published application in ageing or technology evaluation research. The study was preceded by a pilot with four young DTV viewers to generate topics, and the main panel interview was held over two hours in a comfortable college common room setting.
Key findings
The panel identified four main drivers of DTV adoption or rejection by older women. First, cost: the main reason for subscribing was value for money rather than interactivity, and one panellist cancelled sports channels and added National Geographic after her husband passed away, showing how life circumstances shape content choices. Second, content appropriateness: on-demand movies were seen as unsuitable for older women due to inappropriate language and violence, and the panel felt the value-price misfit would discourage adoption. Third, operational complexity: multiple screens, small moving text, difficulty returning to full-screen TV, multiple remote controls with different shapes and locations, and the extra cognitive load of managing several devices all created barriers — compounded by ageing-related impairments and steep learning curves. Fourth, lack of available assistance: DTV providers offered only telephone help desks (too technical and hard to reach), while the panel strongly preferred face-to-face or in-home human assistance and expressed fear of not being able to recover from errors. Notably, none of the panellists had successfully used interactive TV features, and they viewed television primarily as a source of news and mental stimulation rather than entertainment.
Relevance
Although focused on a specific technology transition (UK analogue-to-digital TV), this paper raises issues that remain highly relevant to any technology adoption challenge affecting older adults. The barriers identified — cost, content relevance, operational complexity, and inadequate support — recur across smart home technology, streaming services, telehealth, and mobile devices today. The finding that older women feared trying new technology features because they might not be able to recover from errors is a powerful insight for accessibility practitioners: error recovery and undo functionality are not just convenience features but adoption gatekeepers for older users. The study also highlights the intersection of ageing and gender in technology access — older women were under-represented even among early DTV adopters. The Delphi method application demonstrates a useful qualitative technique for understanding deep-seated attitudes toward technology that surveys and usability tests may miss.
Tags: aging · digital television · technology adoption · digital divide · older adults · gender · Delphi method · usability · interactive television