Designing for an aging population
Rain Breaw Michaels
@rainbreaw
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Why are we here?
Because the global human population is aging
In 2019, 1 in 11 people were over the age of 65. The UN predicts that this number will be 1 in 6 by 2050.
In 2018, there were more people in the world over 65 than under 5.
Source: United Nations Global Issues, Trends in Population Aging: un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/ageing
Image credit: @nickkarvounis on Unsplash
A NN/g 2019 study looked at top ways older individuals engage online:
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Older people are users, too
Diverse, dedicated, and impactful users
Source: Kane (2019). Usability for Seniors: Challenges and Changes. Nielsen Norman Group: nngroup.com/articles/usability-for-senior-citizens
image credit: @cwmonty on Unsplash
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What do I know?
Not enough, actually… but what follows is what I’ve learned
Rain Breaw Michaels, CPWA
Drupal Core topic maintainer for accessibility
Interaction Designer, Google *
* The point of view, ideas, and research expressed here are my own. I am not presenting on behalf of my employer. Any reference to Google products or materials are in the context of mainstream technology and not my role.
The Obvious
The Invisible
What are we talking about?
As we get older, we change. What does this mean for the designers and engineers of technology?
The Elephant
Affordances are contextual
Everything about us determines how we understand things
An affordance is what an interaction element tells us we can do with it. It is binary: it either exists, or it doesn’t. But that binary nature is contextual. If we cannot perceive or understand an affordance because of our situation, it doesn’t exist.
Obvious physical changes
Vision, hearing, dexterity
Physical bodies change
Whether we like it, or not
Until we find a cure for aging, one fact remains true about humans: our bodies change as we get older.
Vision
Vision changes
Beginning as early as age 40
Near field vision decline — reduced accommodation, presbyopia — begins predictably at 40.
By 65, 1 in 3 individuals have some form of degenerative vision loss, also impacting:
Sources: The aging how - how does vision change as one grows older? | Healthcare | AARP | Light and Health | LRC (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), and Common Causes of Vision Loss in Elderly Patients (American Family Physician).
Image credit: @charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
Designing for vision changes
Best practices
Fortunately, this one is pretty easy thanks to prior accessibility research and WCAG guidelines:
Image credit: Material Design Color Tool
Color sensitivity
Part of age-related vision changes
A 2014 study showed 45% of individuals in their mid 70s had difficulty seeing colors in the blue and yellow ranges. This number increased to over 60% by age 90.
Conforming to WCAG contrast and color guidelines will benefit these individuals.
Source: Dotinga (2014). Color Vision Tends to Fade With Age: Study. HealthDay Reporter. webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20140318/color-vision-tends-to-fade-with-age-study#1
Image Source: @steve_j on Unsplash and Simulation: Colbis Color-Blindness Simulator
Hearing
Hearing decline is considered one of the most common changes as we age, and must be considered for aural experiences.
Current data shows that 1 in 3 individuals between the ages of 65-74 have hearing loss.
Hearing changes
And reduced audio range
Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “Age-Related Hearing Loss.” nidcd.nih.gov/health/age-related-hearing-loss.
Image credit: @davidsthephotographer on Unsplash
All of the best practices followed for individuals who are Deaf, hard of hearing, in noisy environments, or simply don’t want to make sounds should be considered. Offer:
Designing for hearing decline
Best practices
Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “Age-Related Hearing Loss.” nidcd.nih.gov/health/age-related-hearing-loss.
Image credit: @tbarlettaf on Unsplash
Dexterity
Dexterity & mobility challenges
Interacting with point & click UIs can be challenging
Ways our dexterity changes with age:
Image credit: @johnmoeses on Unsplash
Designing for mobility changes
Best practices
Image credit: Material Design Accessibility
Beyond the mouse
Don’t rely on a single modality
Enable your user to interact with your interface through the modality of their choice by following WCAG guidelines for “usable.” Especially important: ensure that current focus/position is easy to identify through any modality. Alternate modalities may include:
Image credits: @sigmund and @nathanareboucas on Unsplash and @vtsaran on Flickr
The “invisible” changes
Cognition, expectations, personality
Our minds change
In ways we don’t like, and in ways we do
Our minds are incredible; aging minds are not simply minds in decline. There is a wealth of cognitive function to be explored and valued.
Changes to how our minds work in the areas of memory, attention, and decision making can begin in our 50s.
Cognition
Cognitive functions inform all aspects of our interactions with the world, including:
What is cognition
Cognitive ability is not equivalent to intelligence
Image credit: @7shifts on Unsplash
Types of memory
A critical part of our executive functioning
Source: Campbell (2015). Designing For The Elderly: Ways Older People Use Digital Technology Differently. Smashing Magazine. �Image credit: @freegraphictoday on Unsplash
Procedural memory
Our strongest link
Image credit: @cristian_newman on Unsplash
As we age, it becomes increasingly difficult to hold immediate information in our mind for short-term recall. When designing interfaces:
Working memory
Our weakest link
Image credit: @kellysikkema on Unsplash
If an individual must maintain memory of something, that is temporal, fleeting, or happened at a different interaction point, they are being asked by the designers to perform a cognitive challenge they may be unable to complete.
Example patterns to use carefully:
Remembering across interaction points
A challenge for working memory
Image credit: @markuswinkler on Unsplash
Prospective memory is how we are able to remember what we will need to do, to plan ahead, prepare, and make it through more complex processes.
It can be helpful to offer users a way to keep track of the items they want (or need) to return to, and to clearly provide the next steps in a process with easily retrievable space.
Prospective memory
Memory for what comes next
Image credit: @glenncarstenspeters on Unsplash
Offer users supportive forward planning patterns:
Remembering what to do
Help the user plan ahead
Conform to all of the WCAG criteria for helpfulness under 3.3 - Input Assistance, even the Level AAA ones.
Key goals:
Be helpful
Provide programmatic assistance with form completion
Are you sure?
We are double checking with you one more time before you do this permanent and expensive thing.
CANCEL YES
Timeouts are one of the most stressful UI experiences. Sometimes they are necessary, but even then, they must allow the user enough time to complete their task. For older adults, consider that they may be:
Pay careful attention to the criteria described under WCAG Guideline 2.2 - Enough Time.
Allow enough time
The internet can be anxiety inducing enough as it is
Image credit: @aronvisuals on Unsplash
Cognitive strength
Seniors tend to be methodical
2019 NN/g study found that 95% of the seniors they studied were highly methodical when interacting online. The subjects’ attention span and ability attend to details clearly stood out.
Source: Kane (2019). Usability for Seniors: Challenges and Changes. Nielsen Norman Group: nngroup.com/articles/usability-for-senior-citizens
Expectations
Affordances & patterns we know
We understand affordances based on our experiences
Pattern reliance becomes increasingly important as we age. It helps us solve our challenges quickly without having to increase our cognitive load.
Image credit: @vms_designs on Unsplash
Let the user know what happened
Was their input intent captured?
Provide perceivable feedback (visual, audio, haptic) alerting the user whether or not their action or intent was registered
Image credit: @camylla93 on Unsplash
Reliability over speed
“We’ll wait for it to work”
Our expectations of quality go up, and our tolerance for “making do” goes down.
For this reason, older individuals typically prefer quality and reliability over speed.
Sources: Forstmann, Tittgemeyer, Wagenmakers, Derrfuss, Imperati, Brown (2011): The Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff in the Elderly Brain: A Structural Model-Based Approach. Journal of Neuroscience 23 November 2011, 31 (47) 17242-17249; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0309-11.2011 and Starns, Ratcliff (2010): The effects of aging on the speed-accuracy compromise: Boundary optimality in the diffusion model. Psychol Aging. 2010 Jun; 25(2): 377–390. doi: 10.1037/a0018022.
Image credit: @berou on Unsplash
Decision making
And the art of “choice delegation”
Research suggests that seniors faced with decisions are more likely to preference the experience of others, especially those they deem to be experts, over weighing their own options.
Another trend noticed in older adults is that they are more inclined to “satisfice,” which is to find the first alternative that meets the desired standard, and then to stop looking.
Source: Löckenhoff CE. Aging and Decision-Making: A Conceptual Framework for Future Research - A Mini-Review. Gerontology. 2018;64(2):140-148. doi:10.1159/000485247.
Image credit: @nci on Unsplash
Support decision making
Design choices can help users make choices
We can make it easier for people to make decisions by:
Image credit: @honeyyanibel on Unsplash
Inclusion
NN/g 2019 study found that users actually felt left out.
This was largely due to design choices such as small fonts and light text, may also have come from a “feeling” or sense of the tone or nature of the experience resulting from the design patterns.
Consider older users when designing
“It was created with someone very different from me in mind.”
Source: Kane (2019). Usability for Seniors: Challenges and Changes. Nielsen Norman Group: nngroup.com/articles/usability-for-senior-citizens.
Image credit: @kelvin1987 on Unsplash
‘What was the model of your first car?’ .. I have no idea! What car did I have in 1968? What a stupid question!
Subject of Smashing Magazine 2015 user research interviews on security questions
“
“
Challenge yourselves when thinking about who will use your product. Visit the stories and workflows of users over the age of 65. Include them in studies and tests.
Include older individuals in personas
Inclusive design starts from the very beginning
Image credit: @sujatha on Unsplash
You look at things on the internet, and it’s skewed towards not my demographic…
Online there’s a quest to be cool and old people are not necessarily cool.
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The “elephant”
There comes a time when we can no longer do it alone.
Technology must support us when this happens, as well.
Consider the “supporters”
While protecting the actual user’s personal agency
Sometimes older adults need help from supporters (or “secondary users”), such as children, care providers, professionals.
Interfaces that require cognitive tasks may need to consider how to protect individual agency while also enabling easy interactions with a secondary user.
Image credit: @alex_boyd on Unsplash
Key takeaways
The checklist, resources, how to reach Rain
Physical:
Cognitive:
The checklist
When designing for an aging population
Leverage the strengths:
Direct link to this deck: bit.ly/dc2020-aging
Resources
Including some of the referenced sources
Come to Drupal A11y office hours
Drupal Slack, #accessibility channel
How to reach Rain
@rainbreaw on G.D.O.
Direct link to this deck: bit.ly/dc2020-aging