Designing For The Elderly: Ways Older People Use Digital Technology Differently
by Ollie Campbell
"A lot of people in the tech industry talk about “changing the world” and “making people’s lives better.” But bad design is excluding whole sections of the population from the benefits of technology. If you’re a designer, you can help change that. By following some simple principles, you can create more inclusive products that work better for everyone, especially the people who need them the most."
"Big companies are always trying to simplify the support and development of their large product portfolios. Mail.Ru Group (one of the two largest Internet companies in Russia, with more than 100 million monthly users), has about 40 products — even more if you add mobile and tablet websites and apps, promo websites, etc. My team deals with almost half of them — that’s about 100 ongoing projects at different stages. Our goal is to update these products and unify them around several guidelines."
“Some users may not actually want the latest update. … Their fear and anxiety about change and disruption may exceed any touted benefit of something new and improved.”
"Restricting search to a specific area of a website can provide better results, faster. But users overlook, misunderstand, and forget about the search scope."