We're Not Dead Yet! (Aug 2017, no notes)

Kate Finn
kfinn @ mac.com
We’re Not Dead Yet!
The Case for
Age-Friendly
Technology Design
SV iOS Developers Meetup
8/28/17

Cupertino, CA
Population: 60k
College+: 80%
Age: 40
Income: $142k
Home: $1.8m
9/18/2017 SV iOS Developers Meetup 2

Typical Digital Citizen?

Really, Really Large Populations of
Older Adults
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
China
India
USA
Japan
Russian Fed
Brazil
Indonesia
Germany
Italy
Pakistan
# People Ages 50+ (in millions)
Country
Source: UNDESA Population Division, World Population Prospects, 2015

Growing Percentages of
Older Adults in Developed Regions
0
10
20
30
40
50
2015 2025 2035
%
Year
Less developed regions
More developed regions
Source: UNDESA Population Division, World Population Prospects, 2015

0
20
40
60
80
100
Millennials (18-
34)
Gen X (35-50) Younger
Boomers (51-
59)
Older Boomers
(60-69)
Silent Gen (70-
87)
%
Tech
Adoption
Birth Generation (age, 2016)
Many, but Not All,
Older Adults Are Online
Source: PewInternet.org

Hearing, Vision, Motor Impairments
Age
Source: Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Adults (2014)
%
0
10
20
30
40
50
Hearing Visual Motor
18–44
45–64
65–74
75+
US adults with self-reported impairments, by age group.

Device Ownership, by Age Group
(US, 2015)
Source: PewInternet.org
0
20
40
60
80
100
Tablets Smart Phone Cell Phone Computer/Laptop
18-29
30-49
50-64
65+

Coming of Age Years
(10 - 25)
Birth
Years
Birth Generations
Sources: Howe and Strauss, 2007; Marketing Teacher.com; Wikipedia
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
GI Generation
Silent Generation
Baby Boomers
Generation X
Millennials
Gen Z/Homeland

Technology Generations
Coming of Age
Years (10-25)
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Mechanical
Electro-mechanical
Analog Electronic
PC, Basic Internet
Web, Search,
eCommerce
Digital Music
Technology
Years
Social Media,
Mobile
GI
Silent
Boomer
Gen X
Millennial
Gen Z
Sources: Docampo Rama et al, 2001; Lim, 2010; Sackmann & Winkler, 2013
9/18/2017 SV iOS Developers Meetup
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10
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9/18/2017 SV iOS Developers Meetup
Technology Can Be Truly Beneficial
I feel so connected to so much of the world:
art, music, nature, comedy, humanity.
I can keep in touch with people all over the world.
I can’t imagine going back to a life without a computer.
A Mac laptop opened up the world to me, right here,
from my kitchen table. This is a blessing because
my mobility is now extremely limited due to my
physical disability.
11

How can I make the font bigger? I can’t see it!
What happened to the menus?
I wish they would stop changing things.
I don’t know where to get help.
All the new technology is just so confusing to me.
Is this the website, or an app?
Who thought thin grey letters was a good idea?!
Where did my cursor go?
So much to remember!
...but Not if Poorly Designed
How can I make the font bigger? I can’t see it!
What happened to the menus?
I wish they would stop changing things.
I don’t know where to get help.
All the new technology is just so confusing to me.
Is this the website, or an app?
Who thought thin grey letters was a good idea?!
Where did my cursor go?
So much to remember!

Frequent Usability Issues for OAs
1. Illegible text
2. Passwords
3. Lost objects
4. CAPTCHAs
5. Mysterious icons
6. Small targets
7. Confusing navigation
8. Not understanding where focus is
9. Frequent updates and changes
10.Lack of ongoing support

Most of us will experience at least *some*
age-related changes in:
• Vision
• Motor Control
• Speech & Hearing
• Cognition: Attention, Learning, Memory
• Attitude & Affect
• Knowledge
Age-Related Changes &
Characteristics

Some Things about Aging
• Crystallized (vs. fluid) intelligence
• Greater vocabulary
• Real-world experience to draw from
• Less tendency to worry
• Higher rates of life satisfaction
• Fewer colds, fewer migraines
• Less sweat
• Better sex
• Senior discounts
• “It’s better than the alternative!”

Age-Related Changes: Vision
• Decreased lens flexibility (presbyopia)
• Reduced sensitivity to light, color & contrast
• Heightened sensitivity to glare
• Lens yellowing (common cataract)
• Narrowed field of vision
• Slower adaptation to changes in lighting
• Slower re-focusing with changes in distance

Age-Related Vision Changes
Lens
Yellowing
Presbyopia/
Farsightedness
Normal
Glare
Sensitivity
Reduced Light
Sensitivity

Visual-Cognitive Characteristics
• Less likely to detect subtle screen elements
• Slower on visual search tasks
• More difficulty reading moving text
• Increased sensitivity to visual distractions

Visual Search Slows with Age

Visual Design Guidelines
1. Maximize legibility of essential text.
2. Use color carefully.
3. Simplify.
4. Avoid long lists of options.
5. Make important content salient.
6. Indicate any need for vertical scrolling.
7. Provide text alternatives for non-text content.
8. Create (and use) a consistent graphical language.

• Use plain, large, fonts: sans-serif,
14+ point (5mm)
• Provide at least 1.5 line spacing
• Make text easy to resize
• Use static text
• Use mixed case letters
• Use plain backgrounds
Visual Design Guidelines -
Maximize legibility of essential text

• Make sure users can distinguish colors that
convey meaning (eg: focus, selection).
• Provide high color contrast.
• Ratio depends on size of object
• Provide easy way to adjust contrast
Visual Design Guidelines –
Use color wisely
• Be sparing in your use of color; avoid
using superfluous and/or saturated
colors.
• Avoid using color as sole indicator of
difference.
• Beware of blue vs. green!

Use Color Sparingly–
Avoid superfluous/saturated colors

Use Color Wisely -
Provide high color contrast

Age-Related Changes: Motor Control
• Reduced hand-eye coordination
• Reduced fine-motor control
• Increased movement *variance*
• Reduced strength, stamina
• Slower movements
• Stiffness in joints

• Difficulty grasping/manipulating small objects
• Difficulty making continuous movements
• Difficulty executing coordinated gestures
• Decreased consistency in movements
• Higher risk of unintentional click/touch
Impacts of Motor Control
Changes

Motor Control Design Guidelines
1. Promote accurate, precise selection of targets.
• Make click & tap targets big
• Make swipe targets larger than tap targets
• Make clickable area include text & graphics
• Provide buffer zone around clickable targets
• Place tap targets in center or bottom of screen
• Place horizontal swipe targets near screen bottom;
and vertical swipe targets on right side

Motor Control Design Guidelines
1. Promote accurate target selection
Desktop/laptop devices:
 Make click targets accept clicks in an area at least
11mm diagonal
Touch-screen devices:
 Make tap targets at least 16.5 mm diagonal
(11.7mm square)

Motor Control Design Guidelines -
Promote accurate target selection

Speech:
• Slower rate of speech
• Reduced articulation
Hearing - harder to:
• Filter out background sounds
• Localize sounds
• Understand fast speech
• Hear low volume sounds
• Detect high-pitched sounds
Age-Related Changes:
Speech & Hearing

• Reduced short-term memory/attention
• Less effective long-term memory
• Harder to generalize across situations
• More difficulty retrieving words
• Harder to multi-task
• More susceptible to change blindness
• More easily overwhelmed
Age-Related Changes: Cognition
(Attention, Learning, Memory)

• Less comfortable with technology
• More risk averse
- Strongly prefer familiar paths over efficiency
- Afraid of “breaking something”
- Tend to read everything on screen before acting
- Afraid of embarrassment
• Often get frustrated, give up
• Tend to assign blame (to self or app)
• Reluctant to give personal info
Age-Related Differences: Attitude

• Less familiar w/ tech jargon & icons
• Less familiar w/ control gestures
• Mental models based on different tech gens
• *Greater* domain knowledge, vocabulary
Knowledge Differences

Accessibility, or Just Good Design?

Accessibility Settings
12:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:00
Blinking VCR clocks were often stuck
flashing 12:00 when users couldn’t figure
out how to set the time.
Remember this?

Now We Have This:
Mac iOS Accessibility Settings

WCAG 2.0: It’s Complicated!

W3C: Getting a Relevant Refresh

In Conclusion
(A Long Goodbye)

• Tendency to design for people like ourselves
• Little experience with Older Adults
• Tendency to ignore pure data on Older Adults
• Exclusion of Older Adults from design, evaluation
• Perceived lack of market incentive
• Aging not a “sexy” topic
We Know How to Design Well…
So Why Don't We?

People born after 1980 [!] are all ‘native speakers’
of the digital language of computers, video games,
and the internet. [Prof. Marc Presnky, 2001]
Not all young adults are techno-whizzes
Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

Similar usability issues:
• Low vision; other impairments
• Low literacy
• Low technological literacy
• Obsolete technical experience
• Certain cognitive impairments
• Second language learners
• Situational impairment
Design for older adults, and you design
for almost everyone else. [Alan Newell]

 Everyone who ages will
experience age-related
changes
 Technology will
continue to develop,
rapidly
 We will continue having
trouble with any new
technology we didn’t
grow up with
Age-Friendly Design
Will Never Go out of Style

• % and # of older adults increasing
• Age-related changes  usability issues
• Usability issues exclude people from
benefits of today’s digital culture
• Others face similar usability issues
• Age-friendly improves general usability
• Research-based design guidelines already exist
• More research, and guidelines, in the works!
Making the Case

• Legibility
• Visual Simplicity
• Conceptual Simplicity
• Consistency
• Salience
• Redundancy
• Support
Main Recommendations

Resources
Johnson & Finn (2017) Designing UIs for an Aging Population
Fisk et al. (2009) Designing for Older Adults
Hawthorn (2006) Designing Effective Interfaces for Older Users
Leitão & Silva (2012) Patterns for Mobile UIs for Older Adults
Leung (2009) Improving Mobile Device Apps for Older Adults
Newell (2011) Design and the Digital Divide
Pak & McLaughlin (2011) Designing Displays for Older Adults
Pernice et al. (2013) Senior Citizens on the Web

Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population:
Towards Universal Design
(Johnson & Finn)
Morgan Kaufmann, 2017
Contact:
kfinn@mac.com
jajohnson9@usfca.edu
Really and Truly the End!

We're Not Dead Yet! (Aug 2017, no notes)

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