I am writing this article from a hotel room in Seattle, Washington. I am out here attending Gnomedex 2007, the yearly blogosphere conference put on by Chris Pirillo. Out of the many speakers I saw today on Day 1, Ronni Bennett was one of them. Ronni is a 66-year old blogger who deals with aging issues and anything related to the elderly. In her speech at Gnomedex, she was talking specifically about technology and it’s use by elders. I thought this was a fitting topic for PC Mechanic. PCMech has a lot of older readers.

Web Design for the Elderly

She decided to talk about the issue of technology from the perspective of the elder generation. Ronnie has positioned herself as an advocate for the elder. She went to show us what using the internet is like from the perspective of a senior citizen. She did this by having two volunteers wear special glasses and wear gardening gloves and then try to surf to theindividualvoice.blogspot.com. Now, there is nothing really special about that blog, however it does represent a very poor design. It sports a black background with white text and the side menu is even worse with purple text. That is very tough to read for anybody, but imagine being somebody with reduced vision. In Ronni’s demonstration, the glasses represent the impaired vision of the elder. The gloves represent the lack of feeling that some begin to experience in their hands as they get older. I would imagine the gloves also “fattened” their fingers, making it hard to push a single key. The volunteer said it was almost like she was looking through Vaseline. It looked blurry.

White text on black background just doesn’t work. It is just bad design, and hard on the eye. But, there are also issues with text being too small. A great web demonstration of issues for seniors can be found at Carols’s Web. Check that out to get an idea what using the web can be like for the older among us.

Computer Design for Seniors

We need to make websites as well as computers more accessible for the elderly. Look at the demonstration mentioned above. With impaired vision, the letters on the keyboard itself might be hard to see. Large-key keyboards are one option, but they are expensive and rather hard to find. The letters on screen, likewise, may be too small to read. Some operating systems have accessibility options built-in (like screen zoom). But, Ronni says these features don’t really help. They are annoying and they are hard to find and enable for most elderly. Imagine somebody who is not that familiar with Windows trying to figure out how to use the accessibility options.

The complexities of computers still are an issue for the elderly. If people can go through the effort of creating the $100 laptop for the third world, why can’t some work be done in creating a laptop friendly for the elderly? Such a laptop might have, for example, larger letters on the keys. Perhaps even larger keys. Technology for the elderly does not have to do many things. They only need to do the basics, but allowing those basics to be achieved with ease. What it does do needs to be relevant to elderly, and many of the newer features on systems today are more geek-friendly and not that useful for the elderly.

The Forgotten Market

Senior citizens happen to also be the fastest growing demographic on the internet. All the baby boomers are getting older. We at PCMech, in fact, were rather surprised in a recent survey to find the high numbers of older citizens which frequent PC Mechanic. It really brought home to me that this really is a forgotten market. Most of us who run websites like this are in the younger generation. The younger generation tends to be age-centric, so we target our sites to others like ourselves. PCMech has long been a “plain English” type of website dedicated to technology, which has no doubt played a large role in the large percentage of older visitors we have.

In the tech industry, there is a little age discrimination. Technology companies don’t want to market to the elderly because they don’t want to be seen as being an old company, or be seen as a product for old people. They think that, to get ahead, they need to be young, energetic and “hip”. That’s all well and good, but what about this market of older users?

Blogging for Elders

Ronni says that blogging is important for elders. It combines the best of active and passive thinking. Blogs are important for intellectual stimulation. But, they also are important for social interaction. Many elderly do not have the same social lives they had when they were in the workforce. Blogging provides a lot of social interaction through the use of comments. Ronni says that her blog is frequented by other readers of her age and that she gets a lot of user comments from others in that age bracket.

Conclusion

We need to reduce the barriers for older people into the world of technology. I mean, let’s face it. Everybody is going to get a little older. As Ronni said, with the life expectancy that is normal these days, most of us are going to be “old” a lot longer than we are young. All of us today who use technology daily will, someday, be considered a member of the older generation. Do you think your love of computers and technology is going to disappear? Probably not. We will continue to do what we can here at PCMech to help make the world of computers accessible for those who didn’t grow up around them.