Universal Principles of UX

20

Take extra care of seniors.

A lot of the difficulties seniors face when dealing with digital products have to do with the fact that they were introduced to new technologies later in life—they’re digital immigrants (see Principle 19). This makes some seniors insecure when dealing with a new digital product for the first time.

When we were working on the redesign of the Met Museum’s website, we knew that a large part of the audience would be over sixty-five, so we had to take extra care in thinking through how to ensure seniors could confidently use our interface.

In general seniors need a bit more time to absorb the information on an interface. They tend to carefully review all the elements on the screen before taking action and take instructional ...