Task Complexity Index for Digital Services

As more and more services, both societal and commercial, move online, their accessibility by diverse populations is becoming a problem. This problem, often referred to as the digital divide, is primarily affecting older users, who may have, for a range of reasons, reduced ability to navigate interfaces to access online services they need. Online tasks often have added layers of complexity, such as required visual search, multiple clicks, extensive scrolling, and ambiguous hyperlinks and navigational guidance, contributing to poor usability and user experience. In this paper we describe the development and iterative refinement of a novel measure of complexity, The Task Complexity Index (TCI). The TCI is offered as a tool to measure the complexity of online tasks and to be used in usability testing and as a guide to improve the design of digital services.