Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population

Towards Universal Design

Jeff Johnson, Kate Finn

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780128045121
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Business Intelligence
• Index: Computer Science

Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population: Towards Universal Design presents age-friendly design guidelines that are well-established, agreed-upon, research-based, actionable, and applicable across a variety of modern technology platforms.The book offers guidance for product engineers, designers, or students who want to produce technological products and online services that can be easily and successfully used by older adults and other populations.It presents typical age-related characteristics, addressing vision and visual design, hand-eye coordination and ergonomics, hearing and sound, speech and comprehension, navigation, focus, cognition, attention, learning, memory, content and writing, attitude and affect, and general accessibility.The authors explore characteristics of aging via realistic personas which demonstrate the impact of design decisions on actual users over age 55.- Presents the characteristics of older adults that can hinder use of technology- Provides guidelines for designing technology that can be used by older adults and younger people- Review real-world examples of designs that implement the guidelines and the designs that violate them

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

Presents benefits—both to businesses and to older adults—of designing digital technology to accommodate people of all ages. Provides background facts and figures on the aging of the world’s population. Explains that older adults can potentially benefit very much from using digital technology and the Internet, but often face challenges in using today’s digital technology. Explains that following accessibility guidelines alone is not sufficient to ensure that technology is usable by older adults. Describes the book’s overall goal: to give readers an understanding of the issues older adult technology users’ experience and to provide research-based guidelines for designing technology that works well for them as well as for younger users.

Keywords

Accessibility; Digital device; Digital technology; Elderly; Elders; Older adults; Population; Seniors; Usability

Technology is making the world ever smaller: communications are more frequent, transactions are more instantaneous, and reporting is more direct and unfiltered. If you aren’t connected, you can be at a real disadvantage. Another disadvantage is being unable to easily and effectively use digital devices and online resources. As designers, developers, and advocates of digital technology, we should be doing our best to make it useful and usable for everyone, so no one will be at a disadvantage.

We know the benefits of staying mentally, socially, and physically active as we age. Digital technology can help with that. So it seems paradoxical that older adults can be particularly susceptible to the ill effects of poorly designed digital devices and user interfaces.

At the highest level, the message of this book can be summarized in these four points:

1. Poor usability detracts from everyone’s user experience.

2. Poor usability tends (see box About the Use of Italics in This Chapter) to affect older adults more often and more seriously than it affects younger people.

3. Other groups who experience usability issues similar to older adults include people with low tech literacy, second language learners, people with low general literacy, and those with low vision or other impairments.

4. By specifically designing digital user interfaces with these individuals’ usability issues in mind, we can improve the user experience for many people.

About the Use of Italics in This Chapter

To encourage you to think in terms of tendencies and generalities rather than absolutes, we have italicized words such as tend (to), some, many, and often throughout this chapter. Throughout this book, we emphasize that the number and degree of individual differences increases with age. We all know people whose technical expertise, health, cognition, adaptability, and other relative attributes are exceptionally low or exceptionally high. For every tendency we discuss, there are always exceptions.

Intended audience

This book should be of value primarily to designers and developers of websites, web apps, desktop apps, mobile apps, and digital appliances. Usability, UI, and UX professionals who are interested in age-friendly user interfaces will also find it valuable. And academics can use it as a course textbook or as a companion to more research-oriented publications.

What Does “An Aging World” Mean?

You’ve probably heard it said that our world is aging. What does this mean?

Thanks to improvements in sanitation, housing, education, and health care, life expectancy has been increasing since the early 1900s. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that life expectancy increased by 5 years from 2000 to 2015. In 2015, global life expectancy was 73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males [WHO, 2016]. As a result, the numbers and percentages of older people in national populations have also grown. And they are continuing to grow.

Consider the number of people currently aged 50+. Figure 1.1 lists the 10 countries with the greatest numbers of people aged 50+ as of 2015. The top three countries, China, India, and the US, also had the largest national populations. There were nearly 400 million people aged 50+ in China alone!

Figure 1.1 Countries with the greatest populations of people aged 50+ [UNDESA, 2015a].

For another perspective, consider the percentages of people aged 50+. Worldwide, people aged 50+ will make up 28.9% of the population in 2035. In many countries, however, people aged 50+ will constitute an even larger proportion of the general population: nearly 45% of the population in more developed regions will be aged 50+ (see Figure 1.2). Nobody in our field should be ignoring a demographic that comprises 45% of the population.

Figure 1.2 Areas with highest percentage of adults 50+, 2015–35 [UNDESA, 2015a].

Increased life expectancies. More older people. Countries with large populations. Countries with growing numbers and percentages of older people. The data underscore the importance of addressing the needs and desires of a population that is rapidly growing older.

Why Should the Aging of the World’s Population Matter to Designers?

As usability specialists, we often hear from friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances about their problems with digital devices, websites, or apps. Most of these interactions are with people over the age of 50—as we ourselves are—although some are with people much younger. Even when they’re not trying to do anything especially complex, people are often frustrated and confused. Our aim with this book is to provide means for lessening their frustration and confusion, thereby enhancing user experience for older adults and their younger counterparts.

Usability studies sometimes directly examine the performance differences between older and younger participants. Compared to younger participants, older ones tend to:

▪ take longer to learn new applications or devices;

▪ take longer to complete tasks;

▪ use different search strategies;

▪ perform worse on tasks relying on memory;

▪ be more distractible;

▪ have a harder time dealing with errors;

▪ make more erratic or accidental movements with the pointer;

▪ make more input errors;

▪ have more trouble hitting on-screen targets.

On the plus side, older study participants tend to have better vocabularies and can draw from more real-world knowledge and experiences. Perhaps because they tend to be less impulsive and more risk-averse, they often use fewer mouse clicks to complete a task.

Believe it or not, there are still people who are not online! In the US as of 2015, 15% of all adults aged 18+ were not online [Perrin and Duggan, 2015]. A much higher percentage of older adults than younger adults are not online (19–42% vs. 4–7%) [Perrin and Duggan, 2015]. Of all off-liners, 32% cited usability issues: “finding it too difficult or frustrating to go online, or saying that they don’t know how or are physically unable” [Zickuhr, 2013]. Other reasons included high cost, no perceived benefit, and lack of access or availa...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Meet Some Older Adults
• Chapter 3. Vision
• Chapter 4. Motor Control
• Chapter 5. Hearing and Speech
• Chapter 6. Cognition
• Chapter 7. Knowledge
• Chapter 8. Search
• Chapter 9. Attitude
• Chapter 10. Working With Older Adults
• Chapter 11. Case Studies
• Chapter 12. Summary and Conclusions
• Appendix. Design Guidelines
• References
• Index