We sometimes get asked about what colors are best when designing technology for seniors.  Answering this question is complicated.  To understand, you need to consider four different possible and sometimes competing goals: Providing contrast for shape differentiation and readability Creating or stimulating desired emotions and feelings Stimulating cognitive functions Getting seniors to like a brand or buy a product Different goals often result in contradictory color choices.  For example, color selections will be different if you are designing an instruction manual or help forum vs. a social media app for elderly people vs. an e-commerce site targeted at seniors. Equally… Continue Reading Color in Designing Technology for Seniors

The visual system serves various functions, four of which are critical in the context of designing apps for older adults: Visual acuity is the ability to see fine details of objects such as text, icons and buttons in apps for older adults. Contrast sensitivity is the ability to discriminate between different brightness levels. Color perception is the ability to distinguish between different colors in and around text, icons, buttons, etc. Usable visual field is the ability to use the whole of the visual field to perceive detail in the area being looked at and the surrounding area. In this article… Continue Reading Understanding Recommended Color Contrast

It is well understood that the market for technology is getting older.  By 2030 the number of people over 65 will equal roughly the same number of people who own an iPhone today – a very large and lucrative market.  In our last post we noted that very few product managers and developers have experience designing senior apps, and we provided our Top 10 Technical Tips for doing so. In this post we continue by discussing NON-technical considerations for designing senior apps. These are taken from our full Best Practices Guidelines for making technology senior-friendly. In contrast to technical considerations… Continue Reading Top 10 NON-Technical Tips – Designing Senior Apps

By 2030, almost 20 percent of people in the United States will be over 65.  This is about the same number of people as who own an iPhone today – a very large and lucrative market.  But very few smartphone and tablet developers have experience designing apps for seniors.  It’s no secret that they spend much more time thinking about younger people. But for those of you who see this as an opportunity, here are 10 tips when designing apps for seniors.  These are taken from our full Best Practices Guidelines for making technology senior-friendly. Before getting into specifics it… Continue Reading Top 10 Technical Tips – Designing Apps for Seniors

Understanding minimum touch and pointer target sizes and how to implement them correctly is critical when designing apps for older people! Recommended shape sizes are a function of vision and movement control considerations.  For clickable or tapable shapes in a user interface, targeting precision is generally the controlling factor. It is particularly important when designing apps for older people who have vision or movement control impairments. Conflicting Guidelines Apple’s iPhone Human Interface Guidelines recommend a minimum target size of 44 pixels tall/wide. Google’s Android recommendation is 48 pixels tall/wide with a minimum separation of 32 pixels in all directions.  Microsoft’s… Continue Reading Understanding Recommended Target Sizes

Understanding minimum font sizes and how to implement them correctly is critical when designing apps for elderly people! Printed Font Size Designing apps for elderly people can be aided by understanding some old-school printing concepts.  Letter and number fonts have three size elements:  x-heights, ascenders and descenders. Specifying a font size includes all three of these. x-height x-height = height of the lowercase x character Ascenders = lines that extend above the x character Descenders = lines that extend below the x character Point Size = includes all three of these elements Minimum font sizes are almost always specified in… Continue Reading Understanding Recommended Font Sizes