Written by Fang, 2021 Cohort
Are you afraid of getting old? Have you ever imagined yourself walking slowly with a stick or zooming in your cell phone with reading glasses? As we all know, ageing is becoming one of the most significant social transformations of the 21st century. Undoubtedly, designing for seniors in this digital age is of great importance. In the following passage, I will show you how the world looks in older adults’ eyes and what principles designers should follow to create a better user experience for the elderly.
As we age, our eyes will degenerate physiologically, causing lots of sight problems. To begin with, the lens in the eyeball turns yellow, so everything you see turns yellow. The perception of colour might be deviated. Secondly, the lens of the eye gradually becomes cloudy, causing blurred vision. This is the so-called cataract. Seniors find it more difficult to see in detail compared to younger people. Thirdly, we gradually lose elasticity, making for poor vision overall. Presbyopia is another culprit. Lastly, the maximum diameter that the pupil can open will become smaller, which means that less light enters the eye, making it difficult for people to see in dim light.
Although it is inevitable to avoid vision problems when we grow older, there are some basic rules that visual designers should know, so as to make the digital screen more readable for seniors or people with visual impairments.
Firstly, text and button sizes should be large. The larger the content is, the easier the seniors can recognize graphic elements. Making it easy for users to increase or decrease font sizes at will would be an ideal solution. Besides, fonts should be at least 16px. Sans serif typefaces perform better for readability. Secondly, designers should increase the colour contrast in websites and apps properly, to meet the special needs of seniors. As I have mentioned above, seniors have problems recognizing the blue colour, since their world looks yellow. The contrast can be reduced when blue elements are used on digital screens. By the way, this is one of the reasons why traffic lights are red, yellow and green instead of red, yellow and blue.
Like it or not, everybody gets old. I strongly recommend designers understand these physiological changes, thus providing a more considerate user experience for older adults or people with visual impairments.