Patrick Caldwell

Designing for the Older Folks

There are many stages to a man's life. In the 1st stage, he is young and eager, like a beaver. In the 2nd stage, he wants to build things, like dams, & maybe chew down some trees. In the 3rd stage, he feels trapped, and then 'skinned.'' I'm not sure what the 4th stage is.“ Jack Handey

AGENDA

1. Meant as an working / interactive discussion, not simply a presentation

2. Discuss some of the age related changes to:

CognitionVisionMovement Control

2. Discuss ways to design GUI’s and user interactions to account for or to minimize these effects

CAVEATS

There seems to be many schools of thought on what causes these issues.

There is not even consensus on whether all of these issues exist or the degree to which they are affected by aging.

However I suggest that we consider these issues and possible mitigations where it makes sense for us to.

Also as importantly, there is no one way or single checklist to design.

DEFINING “OLDER” I am not intending or offering a clear cut definition of the term

“older”

Severe signs my only show up in mid to late 60’s, but most follow a progressive decline. One study showed memory loss beginning in the 20’s,

There is also no one path all folks follow, as individuals are all different

OUR USERSOur Users The image below shows an SEG member age distribution chart (1999). Assumption - the whole curve has moved 8 years to the right. If so, the median age

is now 53.

You ≠ Our Users• Even though some of us look like them, we are not our users• Some of us are younger, or less “afflicted”, than our users• All of us, in this building, are more or less comfortable with

technology, which is not something you can say about all of our users

“TYPES” OF MEMORYThere are many types of memory and cognition and age effects them differently

Short-term memory – (working) Long-term memory (Semantic) Prospective memory Dynamic visual attention Spatial cognition Language comprehension Procedural knowledge Attention

SHORT TERM – WORKING MEMORY

There is a well documented decline here. Recent research has shown this may be associated with an inability to filter out surrounding distractions, not problems with focusing attention.

Design Considerations:

Reduce the cognitive load Minimize the number of text fields in your interfaces down to the

absolute minimum necessary. Minimize the number of click/keystrokes/gestures necessary to

accomplish actions in your interface Multi-tasking techniques, letting them continue with their work while

tasks take place in the background. Break down tasks into logical pieces Provide feedback on task completion. “Did I just export that or not?” Reduce response times. The longer user has to wait, the longer he

has to pay attention or hold a context in mind

What has just been perceived and what was currently being thought about.

LONG TERM – SEMANTIC MEMORY

Long-term memory of acquired knowledge (vocabulary, rules of language, historical facts)

Permanent storage – (learned and skilled behaviors) Not shown to decline with “normal” aging

Design Considerations: Make use of these common learned experiences to enhance ease–of –use Example might be reusing concepts from when geoscientists used paper

maps, etc.

PROSPECTIVE MEMORY

Remembering to perform an action in the future Time based - at a certain time or after a certain amount of time has passed Event based - after a certain event has occurred

Declines for time based are much greater than for event based

Design Considerations: Don’t do time based Ensure that an event is available to trigger the event based reminder

DYNAMIC VISUAL ATTENTION Ability to integrate from a large visual space, information that cannot be

comprehended in a single glance Relates to how users scan their environment and focus attention from one

location to another. Each of these events follow in sequences – scan, focus, reorient and scan

again. Each part takes time and attention resources. Under ideal laboratory situations, it has been shown that it can take up to 1

second to reorient attention from one item to the next. Older adults require more time to orient attention from one location to the next A related issue is that older adults can be more affected by higher “salient”

items. (Flashing, high intensity, highly contrasted items). They tend to rely more on environmental support for memory processes. Rely

on external cues to retrieve information from memory

Design Considerations: Use the smallest possible numbers of things to search through to perform a

task Remove extraneous information that might “capture” attention Keep consistency so that with experience, elements do not need to be

reviewed each time Explicitly provide or point to the next steps

SPATIAL COGNITION

Ability to manipulate images or patterns mentally or to accurately represent spatial relationships among components

Ability to create meaning by manipulating images of the world in which he exists, and those that originate in their own mind.

Younger adults outperform older adults here, especially when tasks included New locations Requirement of memory for object locations Development of sequences

Design Considerations:

Don’t require sequence to be remembered, lead the user Bring the interface to the user

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION Ability to interpret verbal information (spoken or written). Includes the

ability to understand individual words, sentences, paragraphs, and to draw logical inferences that are implied

Research has shown that older adults create different linguistic representations of what they read than younger adults.

Specifically they store “smaller” chunks and consequently require more “integration”. This in turn requires more short term memory resources and the issues that that implies.

Also older adults have more difficulty comprehending language when inferences are required. If connections between ideas are not explicitly made, an inference must be made. Again this calls on short term memory.

Design Considerations: Use the semantic memory advantage by using familiar terms and labels Make connections between concepts explicit

PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE Knowledge about how to perform a certain task. Ranges from those

done without active thought (car driving) to those explicit but well-practiced routines (following a recipe)

Older adults have issues with: Learning new automatic processes Inhibiting well learned procedures

Related but not an aged based issue is that under stressful or multi-tasked situations users have a harder time inhibiting well learned procedures

Design Considerations: Make sure that a “new” way of doing something

Minimizes the interference with existing ways Is really important enough, or is such an improvement, to warrant its

“newness” If a new procedure or process is introduced, the task needs to be

broken down into its components If there are components of a task that can follow well established

practices, we would do well to follow. This is so important because those procedures that can be carried out on a non conscious level leave more room for those that do require the limited active conscious thought

MOVEMENT CONTROL ISSUES & SUGGESTIONS

Issues A lot of research shows control of movement decreases with age Older adults vs. younger adults

take longer to complete similar movements Are less precise

Rule of thumb for estimating movement times is that, on general, older will be approximately 1 ½ to 2 times slower

Fitt’s law - The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target

Design Suggestions Larger selection areas - Buttons and other widgets (Seismic lines) to

be selected in GUIs should be a reasonable size. Use for important functions (Big buttons are faster).

Edges and corners of the computer display ( "Start" button in XP) are particularly easy to acquire because the pointer remains at the screen edge regardless of how much further the mouse is moved, thus can be considered as having infinite width.

Avoids forcing travel

OTHER CHANGES

Physiological Changes – A decrease in energy levels•There is clear evidence that aging results in a lowering of androgen levels. (hormones including testosterone among other)

Hearing Issues•A recent study found that with the “normal” hearing loss, folks spent more cognition energy on understanding speech which took away from other cognition tasks.

Brain Sections and their Usage•Older adults have been shown to use additional brain sections to complete tasks than younger folks. While this help with basic memory issues, it does not help with the more complex cognitive tasks.•As mentioned earlier there is a reduction in the ability to ignore distractions . This is thought possibly to originate with a reduction in brain activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex decreases. This is actually an issue for cognition, speech, and vision.

VISION CHANGES Studies show that with regarding finding it necessary to wear glasses

Over 45 - 7 out of 10 Under 45 - 3 out of 10

Declines in Visual Acuity become noticeable by late 40’s or earlier

Presbyopia (inability to change the eye’s focal length due to the condition of hardened, less flexible lenses, coupled with reduced light transmission into the eye) majority over 40 experience this to varying degrees

Depth perception affected

Decreased transmission of light to the receptors in back of the eyes

Decreased ability to dilate lens

Yellowing of the lens

Increased sensitivity to glare

Some deterioration in the size of the “visual field”

An apparent slowing in the speed with which visual information is processed

Early to mid forties – loss of ability to focus on near objects. Makes it more difficult to focus on text that is displayed in the upper part of the visual field. For those who wear bifocals, viewing the upper visual field requires craning the head up to read through the lower bifocal.

VISION SUGGESTIONS Delete Unnecessary Items

Everything must be interpreted – the eye only transmits the sensory data and it is the brain that has to interpret / sort through

Easier on the user if details that are not relevant or useful are removed or relocated. Which brings up the concepts below.

Progressive Disclosure and / or Progressive Enabling Show overviews and hide details until the user requests more detail, and then

to provide only the additional level of detail required. Using Perceived Affordances

Appearance of the device could provide a visual clue to its function and use. Increase Size

Increase the size of visual objects (font size, icon size) Navigation Clues (Where am I, Where did I come from, where can I go?)

Indicate where user is at all times. Tie links and dialogs with same names and reuse of icons

Repeat info if it is required to make good decisions Use the “available space”

While not a hard and fast rule, we are in a slightly advantageous situation that our customers often do have more screen space than other folks. What that can buy us is some breathing room. Not all elements have to be jammed together with font at 8 pixels. More a case by case sort of thing.

VISION SUGGESTIONS (CONT.)

Screen Element Placement

An eye mapping image. The “hotter” the color, the more the eye has viewed and traveled to the spot.

•Most Traveled - The top left corner and then down•Top left to top right is also noteworthy•On dialogs we would expect another hot spot to be down near the bottom global buttons.

Design Suggestions:

• Use these paths to lead users through flow

VISION CONCERNS FOR ALL USERS

Reading on screen is different than reading on paper Tests show the following:

20-30% slower User tend to find relevant items by scanning instead of reading High probability that what the user misses when scanning the first time, will not

be read later on, even if the entire text is then read

Design Suggestions: Create clear and short paragraphs Use words that give right associations in the headings Important words first Avoid long sentences Bullet if possible Text needs to have high contrast compared to the background color

THE WARM FUZZIES Older adults are more likely to express some trepidation in using new technologies and computers in

general. This is in part a fear of making an error and not knowing how to correct it. Studies have shown that the more a user feels in control, the more likely they are to learn new behaviors

and remember ideas and concepts.

Design ConsiderationsThis has obvious and clear design considerations.

Make Actions Reversible People explore in ways beyond navigation. Sometimes they want to find out what would happen if they

carried out some potentially dangerous action. Sometimes they don’t want to find out, but they do anyway by accident.

By making actions reversible, users can both explore and can "get sloppy" with their work.

Always allow "Undo" The unavoidable result of not supporting undo is that you must then support a bunch of dialogs that say

the equivalent of, "Are you really, really sure?" Needless to say, this slows people down. In the absence of such dialogs, people slow down even further. A study a few years back showed that

people in a hazardous environment make no more mistakes than people in a supportive and more visually obvious environment, but they worked a lot slower and a lot more carefully to avoid making errors.

Always allow a way out Users should never feel trapped. They should have a clear path out.

QUOTES FROM INTERNAL FOLKS

You log another 15 years with mouse and keyboard.  I have "mouse" fingers. And I hate having to reach for the damn thing.

I can’t see the screen, I probably need tri-focals.

What does that say?

Where was that option?

I forgot it was Wednesday

Where are we going?

TAKE-AWAYS

Given that There are clearly a wide range of issues that affect older adults and specifically for us, how they interact with

computers and software

Designing for older folks is good design for everybody

Things are just going to get worse for our users

We should Simplify our interfaces

Break down tasks

Consider our users each time we design

Remembering always We are not our users

If we design to what the user knows, expects, their interactions will be smoother and faster

As such we need to Test our assumptions / prototypes

Questions? Comments?

Design Checklist - http://master-blaster/usability/Other%20Documents/Design%20Checklist.doc

REFERENCES

Note - This is not being submitted anywhere so the refs below are not intended to be stylistic correct or comprehensive. None of the info was original, just the presentation itself.

Designing for Older Adults – Arthur Fisk, etc. – CRC Press http://designinginterfaces.com/ - Jennifer Tidwell http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511258.aspx - Windows

Vista User Experience Guidelines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey - Jack Handey The seven sins of memory – How the mind forgets and remembers –

Daniel L. Schacter http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html - Tog A whole bunch of other sources whose details were not ever

transferred from this authors short term to long term storage.