By Cary Ussery, Founder and CEO 
We’ve all heard it before; older people don’t use or aren’t comfortable with technology. The fact of the matter is just the opposite, technology isn’t designed for or comfortable with older people. Let’s dispense with a few things first. People who are 70 or older today have adopted significantly more new and confusing technology than someone who is 30. Feeling good you have gone from a flip phone to a smart phone? They have travelled from rotary, to push button, to car phones all the way up to smart phones. When they were growing up the only TV remote control was telling your kid to get up and change the channel. When you needed to learn about something, you went to the library to get a book (those are those bulky things printed on paper by the way). They have been through a lot of change and have adapted significant new technologies into their lives along the way. Older people are just as smart as anyone else and oftentimes less dependent on being spoon-fed information. Technology is no exception. However, learning to do something that feels unintuitive or difficult is usually the real barrier. Therefore, the challenge is to create a user experience that embraces older adults. Let’s talk about some of those.
What makes you think I can do that?Let’s face, as you get older some physical aspects of us can degrade; hearing, vision, motor skills, etc. What might be ‘easy’ to do for one person (think mobile phone keyboard) may not be as easy for someone else. You need to ensure that your applications are accessible to anyone who might be using it. This is true for everyone but is particularly important when designing for older adults.
When people talk about designing for accessibility, they automatically think of people with disabilities. However, everyone benefits from ease of use and everyone can be distracted when using an app. Design with accessibility in mind from the start.
- Fonts. Use less words when you can and make them easy to read. Size matters here, keep things readable and highlight important information. Use simple, easy to read fonts.
- Colors. As we get older color differentiation can also deteriorate. Vision issues like glaucoma, lens yellowing, farsightedness, and color blindness can impact what a screen looks like. Use well contrasted colors, avoid background images and don’t rely on color differentiation in the UI.
- Touch. Make things easy to select and click. Avoid relying on small buttons, provide separation between clickable options and avoid gesture-based requirements wherever possible.
Rule #1: Design with everyone in mind
What the heck is that?Let’s think about semiotics (Ok, you got me, I’m a liberal arts person). This is the study of language, signs and symbols and it investigates how meaning is created and communicated. A key aspect of this is that the context (environmental, social, historical) is as important as the sign or word itself. Modern day applications are immersed in icons (signs), terminology (language) and UI constructs (symbols). Understanding that the context of these for a 30-year-old is vastly different than for a 70-year-old is an important first step in rethinking the user experience for an older adult.
Personal computers started in the mass market in the late 70s, graphical user interfaces appeared and grew during the 80s, consumer cell phones started taking hold in the 90s and smartphones emerged during the 00s. These developments brought with them a new lexicon of terminology, symbols and patterns. For those who spent their formative years steeped in this lexicon, ways of doing things became ingrained and they became comfortable interacting with technology in certain ways. Look at a simple example, the save icon. This is an interesting one; at first it represented something real (a floppy disk) and then just became a common icon used to save a file; I would imagine most younger people have no idea what this icon represents, they just know what it means. Today’s apps are riddled with examples like this. In addition, it is best to avoid using terminology that assumes technical knowledge or might be confusing (e.g., ‘server error’).
Rule #2: The best icon is a label.
Where the heck is it?People typically use applications to do something; getting to the place where you do that thing should be obvious and simple. Most people navigate based on something called ‘information scent’; meaning, given different options they will choose the one that gives the strongest indication it will bring them where they want to go. The best way to increase the information scent is to make it obvious (like using a label).
I’m not a fan of menus. While they can be useful in complex applications, they should be reserved for things people get paid to do (some call this work). One of the challenges of mobile phone apps is the limited screen space; this is also one of its biggest assets. It enables you to focus on what happens on one page rather than trying to present everything that can happen everywhere at the same time. Navigation is contextual and can actions more focused. For instance, many application ‘screens’ can be one or two actions and a ‘back’ button to get out. In addition, menus don’t really have an information scent; they don’t convey anything except there is something hiding behind them. This automatically assumes that the user knows that what they need is being hidden inside the menu.
I like hamburgers. Not so with the hamburger menu, those three vertical lines that open a list of options. First, go back to our semiotics discussion, many people have no idea what this icon means. Second, they are usually placed in the top left corner of an app which is the hardest part to reach. Finally, they are really a place something that hasn’t been designed into the flow of the application to begin with. For older people, it’s even worse. Menus almost always require you to operate the app with two hands, to have good manual dexterity and to clearly see an even smaller screen area (menus are usually not full screen).
Rule #3: Don’t use menus to mask poor design
Rather than a burden, technology has the power to significantly assist and empower older people. They aren’t afraid of technology; according to AARP over 90% of adults over age 50 have a computer or smartphone or both. Technology is (and always has been) a central part of their lives. The challenge for designers is to wrap technology in a package that makes sense for them (not the other way around).