Analyzing the Impact of Age and Gender on User Interaction in Gaming Environment

Abstract

The age and gender are the significant demographic characteristics in the context of usability. The different age and gender groups may have different perceptions of the aesthetics of user interfaces. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the influence of these factors on user performance in a gaming environment. To investigate the performance of users on commonly used tasks (clicking, pointing, and typing), 360 participants participated in controlled laboratory experiments through a gaming prototype. The performance of the participants was analyzed through different statistical methods. It is observed that there were significant differences between males and females during interaction with the computer. Such differences were also found in the spectrum of age groups. This study may pave new research directions to explore the impact of these factors in multiple different contexts.