research based design

kele palmer research based design

SENIOR CITIZENS AND THE WEB

a study in usabilityaugust 2012


CHANGES AS WE AGE

Physical

As we age we see a change of several physical abilities.

We see a decrease in our vision, hear-ing an motor skills. These physical changes have a direct impact on our lives. Many people will get glasses to assist with their vision, hearing aids to assist with their hearing and become de-pendant on physical aids to assist with a variety of decreased ability of other motor skills.

These changes can also effect how a senior citizen will navigate the web in general and websites in particular.

There are several design and develop-ment decisions we can make as web designer to assist the elderly in their experience with the web and websites.

Older people begin to have a reduced width of their visual field, they are more inclined to develop light and contrast sensitivity. Their perception of color can also change.

For example older people often have a yellow tinge to their vision, affecting the true hue of a color and in turn this can affect the contrast of that color to another.

Without this knowledge that various user groups such as senior citizens, view design differently it is hard to strive for universal usability.

Younger designers often perceive all users viewing a website as they would. It is important to realize that the same website can be seen several different ways depending on the user.

A decrease in cognitive ability should be an important consideration with design-ing with senior citizens in mind.

The decrease in memory, thought pro-cesses and pattern recognition can affect the rate is which information in processed and the way in which an older user can successfully navigate a web page.

This also had a large impact when im-plementing Gestalt Principals to design. Proximity, similarity, common fate, good continuation, closure and area of symmetry are not as affective with older users.

Perceptual Cognitive


FONTS

The physical deterioration of our vision as we age makes it harder for people to read small fonts. It is suggested that when designing for older users you should use not less then 12 pt. size, many users will need even larger font sizes then that to read a page comfort-ably and reduce the possibility of eye strain.

Fonts that are easiest to read on a screen are San Serif (although this is not true of print).

It is also recommended that you do not use a variety of different fonts, use many decorative typefaces or add text decora-tion such as drop shadows.

Intuitively we would bold type to try and make it easier to read, but bolding actually has the opposite affect and will decrease readability.

Readability

This sentence is typed in 12pt San Serif




Good Usability

This would be easy for a senior citizen to read on screen. It uses a 14pt font, it uses one kind of font and not decorative typefaces. It also uses a San Serif type and does not vary the type. There is no decoration on this type.

Poor Usability

This would be hard for a senior citizen to read on screen.

It uses a 10t font, it uses several kind of font and decorative typefaces. It also uses a Serif type and varies the type. There is decoration on this type.


COLOR

For maximum effectiveness in color combinations vary the hue, saturation, and lightness (HSL).

One of the most useful color combina-tions that resonate with senior citizens is a complimentary color scheme. A complementary color is one that is on the opposite side of the color wheel. Examples would include: red and green, blue and orange and yellow and purple.

While seniors respond well to contrast they do not respond well to bright vibrant colors.

It is useful to have a light background with a darker color on top. One of the most effective combinations is a white background with black writing.

Readability

Recommended: Discouraged:

Effective NOT Effective





LAYOUT AND CONTENT

The use of the html alt tag for non-ele-ments is important with older users. It can assist with users that are visually impaired and will work with a speech synthesizer.

Only include relevant information. Older people have a hard time maintaining long lengths of concentration. Keep-ing the information to the point makes it easier for them to quickly find and ab-sorb the information they were looking for.

This is a good place to put the Gestalt Principals to work. Use grouping and organization.

If possible eliminate the use of textured or text backgrounds. White is recommended.

Paragraphs should be left justified for maximum readability.

Usability

Gestalt Psychology suggests that the human mind will see the whole before seeing the parts. The principals listed below will help keep information organized and easy for an older user to search and find the information they are looking for.

GESTALT PRINCIPALS

• proximity: items that are closer together belong together.

• similarity: similar items, that share characteristics belong together.

• common fate: objects will move along the smoothest path.

• good continuation: the want to see continuation between intersecting objects.

• closure: what to form a whole from simple figures.

• area and symmetry: the smaller overlapping figure will be seen as the figure while the larger will be seen as ground.


NAVIGATION

Use convention when it comes to naviga-tion. Keep any menu bars to the left and or on the top of the page.

Do not have complicated navigational hier-archy. Seniors are more likely than other groups to get lost in navigation. Make it easy for them to find the information and also find their way back.

Keep links underlined. It follows conven-tion and may be more familiar to an older user group.

Differentiate between visited and unvisited links. Seniors get lost easily and this helps then from repeatedly visiting a link they have already navigated too and assists in navigating back.

Any images that are linked and clickable should be of a large site. This assist in pre-venting accidental clicks on other targets.

Long pages should have internal links.

Usability

Home

Information Simple Hierarchy

Contact

Large Clickable Linked Image

Conventional Navigation Menu

Con

vent

iona

l Nav

igat

ion

Men

uThis is a link Keep it underlined and as close to convention as possible

This is visited link Change the color to let the user know they have already clicked it

This is a link being hovered change the color to indicate it is active if clicked.


Bibliography

NewTechMedia.com “Seniors Citizens Really Can’t See the Forest for the Trees, Study Finds”

ntt-review.jp “ICT Service Design for Senior Citizen Based on Aging Characteristics”

useit.com “Usability for Senior Citizens”

otal.umd.edu “Universal Usability Web Design Guidlines for the Elderly (Age 65 and older)”

users.totalise.co.uk “Gestalt Theory of Visual Perception”

wikipedia.com

aarp.com

research based design

Documents