Introduction [top]
"Older adults represent the fastest growing demographic worldwide. By 2030, it is estimated that there will be about 70 million older adults in the U.S., which is more than twice their number in 2000" (Chadwick-Dias, Tedesco, and Tullis, p.1391). Senior citizens face specific physical and cognitive challenges which must be addressed by designers to ensure accessibility of their Web sites.
There are a wide variety of tools designed to aid online users who have physical impairments. Users with diminished vision can utilize screen readers such as JAWS, and users with reduced manual dexterity can take advantage of functions such as sticky keys. The problem is, as a designer, you cannot be sure what tools your users are taking advantage of. Therefore it is imperative that your site design be inherently usable and accessible to senior citizens, regardless of client-side applications. Becoming aware of potential challenges within the senior demographic, along with some straightforward guidelines to deal with these challenges is the first step toward creating a highly usable Web site for senior citizens.
Senior citizens and Web Activity [top]
A 2002 study by the Nielsen Norman Group identified major activities senior citizens on the Web. Email seems to be the primary Internet application, with research, news, investment tracking, researching medication and medical conditions, as well as shopping and online banking (Coyne and Nielsen, p.1). Literature review reveals that it is common practice to define senior citizens as those over the age of 65.
The Nielsen Norman Group Study Found that overall usability for senior citizens was less than half that of a control group (age21-55). Usability metrics considered in the study include task completion, time on task, error rate, and user satisfaction.
Senior Citizens and Online Challenges [top]
One of the most common physical limitations seniors exhibit is visual impairment. Human eyes begin to falter at about age forty, and even healthy ones are usually impaired by their sixties. With age, three main ocular events take place: The lens becomes more rigid and the muscles holding it weaken, meaning you can’t focus on small type; the cornea yellows, which changes how you perceive color, and less light reaches your retina, meaning the world looks a little dimmer than it once did (Underhill, p.130). Visual challenges for seniors include small font size, difficulty discerning color differences, and cluttered page layouts.
Many seniors face challenges with their hearing, which does not currently fall into the category of accessibility issues. More designers are incorporating multimedia capabilities into their Web sites, and accommodations need to be made when these auditory capabilities are critical to the sites mission.
Another physical limitation experienced by many seniors is loss of manual dexterity. Arthritis, tremors, or other physical problems can lead to issues such as difficulty clicking on a target, double-clicking, dragging and using scroll bars (Hanson, p.14). Fitt’s Law addresses the idea that “buttons that are small or far away are harder to click on than buttons that are large or nearby (Van Duyne, Landay, and Hong, p.34). Considering the frequent combination of poor vision and limited dexterity that many senior citizens experience, web designers need to pay particular attention to Fitt’s Law..
Aging brings with it cognitive difficulties which have nothing to do with a user’s intelligence or willingness to learn, such as attention problems, memory impairments, and distraction by visual clutter, animation, and irrelevant information (Hanson, pp.14-15). The information overload that many younger people barely notice can be overwhelming to some seniors, leading to an overall negative experience with a Web site.
Senior citizens today frequently have less Internet experience than any other group of users, compounding inherent physical and cognitive challenges. Imagine not knowing that hyperlinks generally change color with access, not being able to see subtle color changes, and becoming very frustrated when you inadvertently keep re-accessing a link on a Web site.
Even as baby boomers enter their senior years with better mental models of Web sites, the physical and cognitive challenges will remain issues for web designers. Beyond personal computing, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) reported that seven in 10 Americans plan on working past the once-typical retirement age of 65, and nearly half expected to work well into their 70s and 80s. As a result of baby boomers staying in the workforce longer, computing and IT technologies will need to change to help this audience remain productive (S., K., p. 1).
Design Strategies [top]
The first step in designing for senior citizens is to create a user profile. Figure out who your users are and determine the challenges they are likely to face while using your site. Remember, you cannot always count on client-side applications to overcome challenges. Build solutions into your site design.
Possible solutions to overcome diminished vision include larger font size, adjustable font size, and use of sans serif fonts. Avoid background images, distracting animation, and be sure to include plenty of white space. Reduced dexterity in seniors requires rethinking drop-down menus, which can be difficult to navigate. Remember Fitt’s Law, and keep your targets large, close by, and uncluttered.
Solutions to cognitive challenges might begin with card sorting exercises to help determine how seniors connect the subjects that your site addresses. Use of breadcrumbs across the top of the page will help those seniors with failing memories keep track of where they are within your site, and make sure to change the color of hyperlinks significantly to reduce navigational confusion. Make your search engines forgiving, and your error messages clear and simple.
As awareness of accessibility issues for senior citizens increases, more research is being undertaken to study the challenges as well as solutions. One result of this research is the emergence of guidelines for accessible design for seniors. For example, the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine, both parts of the National Institutes of Health, offer a ‘Senior Friendly Checklist’ for web designers at nlm.nih.gov/pubs/checklist.pdf. Another result of recent research is growth of tips aimed at seniors themselves, designed to aid in web navigation. Examples can be found at aarp.org and microsoft.com/enable.
Doing it Right, Right Now [top]
One example of outstanding usability for senior citizens is the Web site nihseniorhealth.gov, developed by the National Institutes for Health. Figure 1 illustrates that the site begins with a clean, uncluttered appearance. The toolbar across the top of the page allows the user to turn speech capabilities on or off (D), or to skip navigation (A) when utilizing a screen reader. The options to change text size (B) or the background contrast color (C) are prominent and simple to use. The help prompt (E) and ‘Click to begin’ button (F) are conspicuous, enhancing ease of navigation. Figure 2 highlights the homepage with increased text size (A) as well as a contrasting background (B).
Figure 1
Figure 2
Room for Growth [top]
There are plenty of Web sites which take into account and address accessibility issues. ESPN.com provides a good example. The site offers ways to increase font size, but not on the home page. You can increase the font size only within an article, and the capability to do so is to the left of the article, part-way down or at the very end of the article. The method for changing font size varies, and sometimes appearing within the ESPN.com Tools graphic, along with print and email options, sometimes appearing as a standalone font size adjustment graphic. All of this is within the context of a very busy, graphically intensive site. Providing options to change font size is a good start, but ESPN.com needs broader application of accessibility tools along with a sense of consistency.
Making existing technologies more usable is an issue being pursued by the computing industry in general. The next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, is due out in 2007 and will automatically identify accessibility issues during installation, guiding the user to customized settings. Technologies such as “font enlargement, color changes, and sticky keys are already built into Windows, but few ever set them up” (Bray, p.1).
Conclusion [top]
It is often said that designing accessible Web sites means designing usable Web sites: good accessibility benefits all users. Furthermore, usability is an integral part of good information architecture, and “information architecture is not about surface glamour; it’s about mission-critical infrastructure” (Morville and Rosenfeld, p.314). Your site exists to fulfill a function, and that cannot happen if it is inaccessible to its users
Increased dependence of seniors on computers and the Internet for everyday tasks is forcing good web designers to focus on good usability. A savvy business simply cannot move large chunks of functionality over to a web environment without making sure that its interface is accessible to all of its customers. Now is the time to learn the basics of designing usable sites for senior citizens. We have a window of opportunity to become experts in accessibility, a short period of time before baby boomers enter their senior years. To ignore this demographic would be foolish and just plain bad business. So many accessibility solutions are easy to master and implement, and the return on investment is well worth the effort
References [top]
Bray, Hiawatha. “Adapting PCs to an aging poplation.” The Boston Globe [Boston, MA] 31 Jan. 2005. boston.com. 25 Feb. 2005 <http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/01/31/adapting_pcs_to_an_aging_population/>.
Chadwick‑Dias, Ann, Donna Tedesco, and Tom Tullis. “Older adults and web usability: is web experience the same as web expertise?” Extended abstracts of the 2004 conference on Human Factors and computing systems. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vienna, Austria. New York, NY: ACM Press, 2004. 1391‑1394.
Coyne, Kara Pernice, and Jakob Nielson. “Usability for Senior Citizens.” useit.com. 3 Feb. 2005 <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020428.html>.
Hanson, Vicki L. “Web Access for Elderly Citizens.” Workshop on Universal Accessibility of Ubiquitous Computing. Proceedings of the 2001 EC/NSF workshop on Universal accessibility of ubiquitous computing: providing for the elderly. New York, NY: ACM, 2001. 14‑18. ACM Digital Library. 1 Mar. 2005 <http://portal.acm.org.content.lib.utexas.edu:2048/citation.cfm?id=564531&jmp=cit&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=39716194&CFTOKEN=37694279#CIT>.
Rosenfeld, Louis, and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. 1998. Ed. LeJeune Lorrie. 2nd ed. N.p.: O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., 2002. 314.
S., K. “Emerging tool helps to ensure accessibility and usability for the visually disabled.” theMatureMarket.com. 3 Feb. 2005 <http://www.thematuremarket.com/SeniorStrategic/index.php>.
Underhill, Paco. “If You can Read This You’re Too Young.” Why We Buy: the science of shopping. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. 129‑140.
Van Duyne, Douglas K., James A. Landay, and Jason I. Hong. The Design of Sites: patterns, principles, and processes for drafting a customer‑centered Web experience. N.p.: Addison‑Wesley, 2003. 34.
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