Help!: I'M Stuck, And There'S No F1 Key On My Tablet!

Older adults are often considered to be less frequent adopters of new technologies, in part due to increased efforts required to learn new interaction paradigms, especially if these need to overcome long-established mental models of technology use. Many current interfaces such as mobile devices often do not incorporate elements that align with older adults' models of use: explicit help menus, user manuals, navigation affordances. The lack of such reassuring elements may cause anxiety to those trying to learn interaction paradigms that are new to them. This paper details the help and support paradigms behind the design of a contextual support interface for tablet devices and describes the results of a usability evaluation with older adult participants.