Guiding the Design of Inclusive Interactive Systems: Do Younger and Older Adults Use the Same Image-Schematic Metaphors?

The use of image-schematic metaphors is often promoted for being near-universal across user groups, suggesting that these metaphors have the potential to make novel interactive systems easy to use by both younger and older adults. This study empirically investigates this by eliciting image-schematic metaphors from the spoken language and interaction behaviors of 12 younger adults and 12 older adults undertaking tasks in a technology learning domain. For the first time, we reveal an almost-perfect overlap between image-schematic metaphors used by the younger and older groups, despite the two groups showing significant differences in prior technological knowledge. This finding provides empirical evidence for the near-universality of image-schematic metaphor use across age groups. The study also identifies 37 image-schematic metaphors shared between the two age groups in the technology learning domain to support future design of age-inclusive interactive systems.