Better UI for the aged and disabled - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:39:59 pm
content: When I was young, I decided some user interface that I was rather pleased with. Now that I am older, I understand some of the mistakes I made.I started this thread to call attention to age-proof UI; it may benefit disabled as well. I hope you will contribute to this discussion and perhaps apply it to your design. All will benefit by having a more friendly UI.(1)High contrast - light grey text on medium grey (or light any color on darker any color) is not helpful.Nielsen Norman Group (Research-Based User Experience) : Ensure High Contrast for Text Over Imageshttps://www.nngroup.com/articles/text-over-images/Here is an interesting one you can see how contrast affects ability to read:All About Vision: Contrast sensitivity testinghttps://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-exam/contrast-sensitivity.htm(2)If you can, black and white is the best. I do know a few color-blind people. Per wikipedia, most common color blindness is red-green (8% of males and 0.5% of females of Northern European descent), followed by blue-yellow, then total color-blindness. Not a bad idea to have your display/print-outs readable by more people.Wikipedia: Color blindnesshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness(3)Break up long numbers. Nothing like seeing an account number like 20210428154542002 vs 2021-0428-1545-42002. I think longer than 5 or 6 numbers in a series get much harder to read.(4)Make your page zoomable if possible. Larger text/drawings are easier to read.(5)Don't make tiny touch/click areas. In my opinion, this is possibly the greatest reason why many older people don't use smart phones much. With small prints, at least one get get a magnifying glass, but no help for other issues like lost of fine muscle control.For some, closing their hands to make a fist or opening up their hands fully can be difficult particularly on rainy days. Aiming at a dim-size area can be a real challenge.The Healthy Back Institute: Humidity and Pain… How They’re Linked & How to STOP the Suffering Fasthttps://losethebackpain.com/humidity-and-pain/(6)Icons are not always cross culturally compatible. Early in the days of the Apple Macintosh, I read a tech magazine article that two icons (if memory serves, it was the garbage can and the scissors) were confused the heck out of customers in Japan. There are US sites (and appliances in my home) that I couldn't make head or tails out of the silly little icons. Mouse-over or other kind of text description may be helpful.Ergonomics International Journal: Icon Interpretation and Understanding: A Cross-Cultural Case Study of Product Interfacehttps://medwinpublishers.com/EOIJ/EOIJ16000158.pdf(7)Choice of color is not cross culturally compatible either. Different color convey different things to different culture. When I was working in a fortune 500, Marketing Dept was limited to four colors for international. That four colors were thought to never offend anyone anywhere (can't remember them if my life depends on it).(For #6 and $7)Nielsen Norman Group (Research-Based User Experience) : International Usability Testing. Why You Need Ithttps://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-international-usability-testing/