3 things you can do right now to make your site more usable for older adults
Recently, I’ve been advising people working on resources for COVID-19 and a re-occurring theme is elder-inclusivity. Unfortunately, many technology based services are NOT designed with the needs of older adults in mind; in normal times this is problematic, but now especially so. Here are 3 things you can do right now to make your site more usable for older adults, plus 5 bonus design principles to think about when designing software that needs to be accessible to an elder audience.
1. Bump up the text size
As we age, our vision declines, which means text needs to be bigger. Increase the size of all text on our size, including text in forms and buttons. W3 schools even says most text can be increased “…up to 200 percent without loss of content or functionality.” Medium.com (where you’re reading this) is arguably one of the best reading experiences online and uses a body copy of 21pt.
2. Use conversational language
Use conversational language throughout your website, and avoid digital jargon. According to Sequence, conversational language allows older adults to interact with your service the way they want to–just like they do with their friends and family.
3) Increase color contrast
As we age, our vision declines, which means it’s harder to see the difference between different colors. According to W3 schools, “a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1” is necessary to make your site usable. Here’s a free tool to check out if your colors contrast enough.
If you’re interested in learning more about designing digital products for the needs of older adults, visit Sequence, an open source toolkit we developed at Fern to help people design older-adult-accessible software.
Want more older-adult friendly design principles?
These design principles below are part of Sequence. The design principles were developed from academic literature and usability tests with 28 elders, ages 65–90, with a wide range of abilities.
1. Linear Navigation
Structure your app’s visual metaphor linearly, as a series of pages that flow in the same direction. Linear navigation keeps the mental model simple and clear. Navigation is simply forward and backward.
2. Glanceability
Keep information density on each page low, and visual contrast between different types of information high. Glanceability avoids excessive cognitive load for the user. Understanding is as easy as seeing what’s on the page.
3. Conversational Language
Use conversational language throughout your app, and avoid digital jargon. Conversational language allows older adults to interact with your service the way they want to–just like they do with their friends and family.
4. Accessible Gestures
Register swipes as taps. People with arthritis, tremors, or Parkinson’s find it hard to precisely tap a button. Swabbing is a different kind of gesture that’s like a baseball player sliding into home plate. Instead of a precise tap, users will often tap then slide onto the target.
5. Multimodal Feedback
Use audio and haptic feedback for button presses. Using audio, haptic, and visual feedback has been shown to increase usability for older adults.
Help us build an elder-inclusive world at Sequence.com.
