Web Usability and Age

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Web Usability and Age

• Thomas S. Tullis (tom.tullis_at_fidelity.com)
• Ann Chadwick-Dias (annmarie.chadwick-dias_at_fidelity
  .com)
• Human Interface Design Department, Fidelity
  Investments
• Materials for AARP Panel Tyranny of the Tiny
  Type
• March 4, 2003

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Research on Web Usability Age

• Our overall goal is to improve the usability of
  Fidelitys web sites for users of all ages.
• Some specific questions we have been studying
  over the past year
• Does age affect how users interact with web
  sites?
• Is this independent of web experience?
• Does age affect users subjective reactions to
  web sites, such as their level of trust in
  financial web sites?
• What design factors improve usability and
  subjective reactions for different age groups?

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Why Are We Studying This?

• Increasing number of older adults in the US, as
  shown by the 2000 census.
• According to the Administration on Aging (2001),
  there are an estimated 4.2 million Internet users
  over the age of 65 in the United States.
• As older users are increasingly exposed to
  technology, understanding their unique
  requirements will become paramount in the design
  of human interfaces.
• In short, older adults are a very important group
  for our company, and we want to provide them with
  the best possible service.

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Overview of Our Studies

• Study 1
• Learn whether there are differences in how users
  of various ages interact with a web site, and
  whether text size has an effect on usability.
• Study 2
• Redesigned the prototype to address specific
  usability problems encountered by older users in
  Study 1.
• Study 3 (still underway)
• Confirm some of the earlier findings with a wide
  variety of live financial services sites.
• Investigate subjective factors, such as trust.

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Common Approaches All Studies

• Used external participants of varying ages
• Not Fidelity employees or current customers.
• Tried to control for web/PC experience across
  ages.
• All studies were conducted in our Usability Labs
  in Boston.
• All studies involved asking the participants to
  perform representative tasks.
• Displayed sites in 800x600 resolution on a
  17-inch monitor using Microsoft Internet
  Explorer version 6.0.
• Data collected Subjective ratings, task
  duration, task success, click data, and extensive
  observations.

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Studies 1 2 Overall Conclusions

• Even when level of PC/Web experience is
  controlled, older adults experience more
  usability issues on the web than younger adults.
• When specific design modifications were made to
  accommodate the unique needs of older adults, the
  modifications improved usability for all users,
  with equal effect.
• But we still did not close the usability gap
  between younger and older users.

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Lesson 1 Reading

• Older adults tend to read most of the text on a
  page.
• Design Implications
• Reduce the amount of text on each page while
  conveying the required information and not
  compromising the effectiveness of instructional
  text.
• Be as concise as possible when providing
  instructions.

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Lesson 2 Cautious Clicking

• Older users tend to be more cautious in
  everything they do on the web, including clicking
  on links.
• Design Implications
• Use action-word links links that clearly explain
  what will happen when the user clicks the link.
• The more clear the resulting action for the link,
  the more likely older users will click it (and
  the faster they will click it).

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Lesson 3 Larger Text

• Even though it may not significantly improve
  overall performance, older users prefer larger
  text.
• Design implications
• Use a medium-sized default font.
• Provide an obvious way for older users to
  increase text size, like a visible button.
• Use scalable fonts or fonts that will allow the
  user to increase and decrease text size using the
  browser functions (View gt Text Size gt Larger).

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Lesson 4 Links

• Older users are more likely to click objects that
  look clickable, including bullets, headings,
  etc.
• Older adults have difficulty clicking small text
  links.
• Design Implications
• Use an obvious and consistent method of
  displaying text links, like blue underlining with
  red on mouseover.
• Use image-based links that provide a larger
  target area for the user to click.
• Increase redundancy in links (making text AND
  bullets links) to increase the chances that older
  users will successfully reach their target.

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Lesson 5 Confidence Anxiety

• Numerous experiential differences contribute to
  older users overall level of confidence and
  anxiety in using the web.
• The more success older users experience with a
  particular site, the higher their confidence
  level will become, and the lower their overall
  anxiety.
• Design Implications
• Keep your design simple and stable. Too many
  changes in the design over a short period of time
  will force the older users to re-learn how to
  work with the site.

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Lesson 6 Terminology

• Older users often do not understand terms that
  younger users consider common knowledge.
• Some of these terms include Back (or go Back),
  link (click the link), URL, menu bar, toolbar,
  IM, minimize, Login, and home.
• Design Implications
• Do not use web or other technology-related terms
  without defining them.
• Keep terminology as simple as possible throughout
  your site.

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Lesson 7 Consider Disabilities

• As people age, they have an increased likelihood
  of disabilities, including visual (myopia,
  cataracts, etc.), fine motor (tremors in hands),
  muscular/skeletal (bone disease like arthritis),
  and cognitive (short-term memory decreases).
• Design Implications
• Review the W3Cs Web Content Accessibility
  Guidelines. This provides recommendations for
  supporting assistive technologies and designing
  for users with disabilities.

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Lesson 8 Too Much Detail

• Older users have difficulty working with pages
  that are dense or have too much detail.
• Design Implications
• Keep pages as simple as possible so that older
  users do not encounter information overload.
• Provide concise instructional text and break
  information up into separate pages if necessary,
  so that no one page presents too much information
  or requires users to remember too much.

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Conclusions Studies 1 and 2

• Older adults probably experience lower usability
  because of a myriad of contributing factors,
  including site design factors, as well as social,
  cultural, cognitive, psychological, and physical
  factors, and overall differences in life
  experience.
• Site design modifications that help older users
  will often help younger users too.
• Additional research needs to be conducted to
  learn more about how to design interfaces to
  better meet the needs of older users.

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Whats Next?

• Finish this third study!
• Determine which specific site design features
  impact subjective reactions such as trust and
  whether this differs by age.
• Consider multiple life-stage-based designs for
  web sites (based on what we learn in the current
  study).
• Test different age groups on different prototypes.

Ultimately learn how to design web sites to
optimize the experience for users of all ages.