User research: Some thoughts on the usability of elderly users ' websites

Article Description: Some thoughts on the usability of the old users ' website.

In most countries in the West, most of them are ageing societies, such as the British 2001 Government survey, which says the population aged 60 and over is already over the age of 16. Because the internet started early in the west, older users more, the availability of older users of the research is also very common. At present, China has begun to enter the aging society, China's InternetIt is no longer the world of young people. Eric ConsultingThe survey shows that the age structure of Chinese netizens tends to be balanced, and the users of middle and high age groups grow rapidly. As of June 2010, the Internet users of 20~30岁 from 2000 to 61% gradually reduced to 28.1%, accounting for the minimum of 31~40 and 40 years old and above the user has been increased to 22.8%, 18.2%, the age structure of internet users have been maturing. The reason of age structure of Netizen is that with the development of society and economy, the Internet has been popularized by the early new things into the application of People's daily contact, and the integration of people's life is increasing. In addition, the 10 time span makes the generation of Internet users replacement, the original part of the low age of the user has grown into the elderly netizens. So it is necessary to explore the usability of the old users of the website. Read a few foreign users on the site usability of the article, integrated its content, I also on the elderly users of several aspects of the usability of the site has been a number of considerations.

1, emotional response to elderly users unlike young people, need irritating, high-impact visual images. Therefore, it is recommended to use color and peace, without visual impact too strong picture or animation. Text content to avoid the use of color emotion strong modal words. Use imperative sentences more.

2, the weaker mental model the thinking and memory of older people have been declining, so try to give hints and help information when browsing the Web. For example, the links that have been visited change color. There are also in the E-commerce website shopping process, some elderly users often forget the settlement after shopping. Or the same product has been selected several times, there have been repeated payments. So we should make as many hints as possible. Another interesting finding is that older people want to scroll the page in this way rather than using a paging. Because in the scrolling mode, the user would like to see more information. So we found this rolling technology design on Twitter and Google reader.

3, technical language as little as possible to use technical language, we usually found that the older users do not understand the technical language . It has been found that older users have not even understood the phrase ' home ', ' url ' and ' browser '. Remember once there was a joke that said, grandson Online said through the cat download, Grandma heard the cat under the cub. This technical term is easy to cause confusion or ambiguity to the elderly, the result is young people say to buy Apple four generations , the elderly is likely to buy four bags of apples.

4, Disgust download according to a foreign survey, 80% of the elderly users expressed a strong aversion to downloading, downloading files from the Internet because they were worried about the virus or the error occurred. The young participants did not express such views.

5, the preference for large and simple design is now 2011 years of the popular trend of web design is, big and simple. Big title, Big LOGO, big font, big background picture. The simplicity of the design is becoming popular. These are partly related to the popularity of smaller mobile devices, while enhancing visual effects. The other is to provide convenience to these elderly users.

Some suggestions: 1, the design of Web page scrolling mode to replace the paging mode is the trend of web design. When the page content is complete, it is loaded continuously. 2, to minimize the download and use of Plug-ins to provide HTML version of the Web page. 3, the page design concise and clear, maintain consistency. Important content can be highlighted in big print. 4, visited the link should change the color, make a hint. 5, a variety of English abbreviations, technical terminology as far as possible not to use. For our old Chinese users , the English words on the website are difficult to understand. should also be used sparingly. Explanations should be given when necessary. 6, the Web page font as large as possible, the background color to be harmonious, to low carbon. Avoid stimulating the eyes and causing fatigue.

Conclusion the elderly users as one of the site users, the scale and importance, will appear in the next few years. Now the thinking and research, can make our design more humane. can also support the use of the Internet by older people. I think it's a topic of thinking about how older people use websites. Will further expand our knowledge of user design.