[Foreign Design Issue 177]
Attracting older people as part of the user base was once considered the last thing to be considered in the Internet world. However, this rare situation is becoming a reality, and we are witnessing the continued growth of older users who log in, sign up and subscribe regularly. Within the United States alone, 64 percent of seniors were online in 2016, up from just 4 percent in 2013, according to Statista.
Despite their growing numbers, older users are still a demographic backwater of user experience. If UX practitioners don’t take older users into account, they alienate the entire population and cut them out of the online experience: that’s not good.
Customize your web design for older users by following best practices such as enlarging UI elements, using colors to emphasize important content, and conducting appropriate user testing.
Make the interface readable
Text: Bigger is better
Consider the size of the text and the screen itself first to make sure the user interface is legible. Unlike us UX designers, not every user has a high-resolution monitor, which is not necessarily eye friendly. For users over 60, small text can be maddening. If you want to target older users, keep your body size at least 12 pounds.
Sometimes users choose to adjust the size of the browser itself. But most of the time, this just enlarges the entire page, which can lead to functional and display problems. Avoid asking the user to manually set the size.
What’s more, by breaking the information down into smaller pieces and dividing them by white space, you don’t have to cram a lot of text into a tight space and confuse the user.
Adjust color and contrast for best visibility
When designers ignore the color specification, the user experience collapses. Colors and contrasts in the interface help users determine which elements correspond to which tasks, know where they are on the site, and know which words lead to a particular page. For example, avoid blue for text without links – dark blue is the standard color for links on web pages.
Also, if unvisited and visited links have no difference in color, they may have a hard time getting back to where they were. This affects all users. However, older users have a harder time remembering which parts of a site they visited, and can waste time iterating and then coming back to square one.
Use a language the user is familiar with
Jakob Nielsen of The Nielsen Norman Group points out that not all designers read the web they design and therefore don’t think about the effort it takes for people to read it.
When designing web pages for older users, who are hard of hearing or visually impaired, consider the way information is presented. WCAG reminds us that content must be perceptive, and that users with specific disabilities must still be able to access the information. If the video or audio content is essential to the audience-impaired person’s experience, additional subtitles or subtitles should be provided. Providing a reading function is crucial for users who need someone to read the text out loud. You can try using a text-to-speech (TTS) program like Ivona (soon to be Amazon Polly).
Also, know that phonetics, slang and puns can be a challenge for certain age groups. Slang can ruin the user experience, so make sure your copywriting is right for your audience. Avoid jargon that can confuse users and stick to language that conveys exactly what you mean. Empathy maps can help you write content that works for a specific target group.
Easy to click
Between the ages of 55 and 65, hand-eye coordination and motor function begin to decline, making the user interface more difficult to navigate. The mouse is a particular problem for users with declining motor function, as clicking on an interface object, moving between interface elements, and responding to an object on the screen are all very difficult.
According to Ollie Campbell of Smashing Magazine, to overcome this obstacle, make sure that clickable UI elements are large enough (at least 11mm diagonally) and spaced far enough away from other elements (at least 2mm). You can also minimize mouse clicks, leaving only one clickable element if necessary.
For users with motor impairments, scrollbars can also cause usability problems. Holding down a thin scroll bar and performing a scroll operation is very difficult. Moreover, for dyslexic users, scrolling can interfere with their experience, as they are constantly relocating the text after the interface has moved.
Simplify the scrollbar — look and feel. Give the user more options (click on the scroll bar arrow, click on the draggable area of the page itself, drag the slider, use the mouse wheel, or use the up and down keys on the keyboard). But in general, avoid scrolling if you can.
Fortunately, computer keyboards and mobile touch screens can help older users keep up. Because finger-tapping deteriorates later than other functions, many older users are better at using computer keyboards and touch screens.
Make UI patterns easy to remember and aid cognition
For any user who wants to complete A task through the UI, they need to get from point A (entry) to point B (task completion) as quickly and easily as possible. That’s why clear UI navigation is so important.
But for older people, UI navigation systems need to be more direct in facilitating user flows. Why is that? While our long-term procedural memory (remembering how to do something) doesn’t change easily with age, our attention span declines and short-term episodic memory suffers. This means there are limits to our ability to learn new concepts, such as learning to operate a new interface designed for young people.
Try using standard ICONS and navigation modes, such as a top bar that allows you to see all options at once, or breadcrumb navigation that guides the user to a specific location with a few clicks. This helps users get used to where features are and how to find them on the site.
Don’t hide important information. Keep breadcrumb navigation to guide users to relevant areas of the site.
Also, avoid unnecessary links. Doing so increases the user’s trust and encourages them to click on links that lead them to important places on the site or app.
Know your user base
To make the user experience more enjoyable, there should be a framework that captures the needs of the target audience. But different users grew up in different technological eras, and designers will never be able to please all ages.
How to solve it? Do user testing.
Even if designers follow these guidelines for older users, the only way to really know how someone handles a site is to test it. For older users, consider qualitative analysis using the “think and talk” method, where you can see everything happening on the subject’s screen. This will help you improve your understanding of the user’s cognitive processes and physical limitations, and determine which parts of the UI system need to be reworked.
One of the biggest pain points for older users is difficulty seeing and reading screen content. Impaired vision or hearing means some older people struggle to interpret content on websites and mobile devices. By testing your interface design with real people and discovering real problems, you’ll get a better idea of how the solution will work.
Consider using a prototyping tool for user testing, such as Justinmind, to demonstrate your design in real time. This gives you instant feedback on why and how to fix design problems — the principle behind qualitative user testing.
And why not go a step further: include older subjects in the design process and give older users control of their online experience.
conclusion
The older user base still has huge growth potential. But just like any other demographic, older users need us to design an experience that fits their needs. Age-related limitations mean that some of the usual hooks in digital technology don’t work for older users.
Identifying these bad experiences of older users can help prevent designers from making these mistakes in their designs. User testing is a safe way to make sure your users get what they need. Include older users in the interface design process, the user experience will not be bad.
Author: Emily Grace Adiseshiah
Original link: usabilitygeek.com/ux-design-t…