Design for Aging Users
Anything that is invented between when you’re 15 and 35 years old is new and exciting . . . anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.
— Douglas Adams, How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet
The author of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy apparently knew something about us human beings.
When we age
Our brain is plastic. It can be shaped, and it can retain the shape. But the older we get, the greater effort we need to take to change our brain. It’s natural to feel uncomfortable dealing with new things as we age. Consider your favorite song — when was it released?
Even if we manage to stay open and never stop learning (good for you!), aging still comes with many side effects. In the book Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population, the author explains how “little” things can make technology harder for older adults. When vision blurs, hand trembles, memory fades, and attention wanders, those “little” things become bigger.
Age-related characteristics seldom come alone. Vision, hearing, motion and cognition always combine. It’s never just about getting that button bigger.
Design for everyone
The world is aging. But many still see being old as a stigma. As a designer, there’s no better time to demonstrate that aging is not the problem.
In face, older adults bring insights and opportunities for us to improve, to build better products that end up helping everyone. Like the curb cut:
The curb cut effect: What’s beneficial for a specific population may be just as useful for a broader audience.
The curb cut effect in everyday life
Hearing
- Situation: Older adults with hearing loss watching TV
- Solution: Subtitles
- Also benefit: Anyone in a noisy environment
Motion
- Situation: Older adults with hand and arm weakness sending long messages
- Solution: Voice-to-text
- Also benefit: Busy people
Cognition
- Situation: Older adults with weak working memories filling a form
- Solution: Write clearly and simply; one step at a time
- Also benefit: People with ADHD or dyslexia (the number can be larger than most people think)
Empathize
We talk about designing with the user in mind/focusing on the users all the time. But we should design things that we ourselves are also excited to use. And that’s what we call empathize — sharing mutual mental and emotional experiences.
One more thing…
Characters in the above doodles are super simplified version of Hiro M’s “Little Blue Light” concept. He sees this “little blue light” in everyone at Zeals. And he thinks that’s what make them special.
Colors in the doodles are randomly chosen from Junio Serroni’s palette. He never think he’s good at anything. You can tell that’s not the truth.
