Investigating activity zones on smartphones: An empirical study with older adults

This paper investigates and extends existing knowledge on older adults' (65+) gestural interaction with smartphones. Specifically, it looks at the effect touch targets location has on older adults' performance of tap and swipe gestures. Two separate experiments, each with 40 participants, showed older adults' performance for tap is best toward the center, right edge, and bottom right corner of the smartphone's display. For horizontal swipe participants' performance is better with targets toward the bottom half of the display, while for vertical swipe performance is better with targets toward the right half of the display.