Question:
Discuss the Research Into Issues Relating To Elderly Website Users.
Answer:
Research Aim and Objective
The basic aim behind conducting the said research is to find out the various problems which the elderly users of the web face while using the websites via the internet. It also illustrates the guidelines that the developer of these websites should follow in order to make sure that the elderly people can easily navigate and browse through the sites effortlessly and competently. Identification of the right set of rules to make the websites user friendly for all types of users whether young or old is the main objective of this research. To identify the right guidelines and methods to make the use of websites user friendly for all ages, this will be determined by the success rate, error rate, satisfaction level and time taken to complete tasks of older web users on the various websites.
The specific area for improvement will be in the user experience for elderly web users; Further it also discusses about if any kind of changes have occurred within the web pages developed over the years and whether the requirement of all age groups are being fulfilled specially the old age ones. Lastly, the report also focuses upon identification of the various technical problems and how the same should be resolved so as to be of advantage to the elderly is also explore.
To identify technical issues to be addressed when developing websites to also benefit the elderly.
Chapter: Literature Review
Over the years, the numbers of elderly people using the Internet on a regular basis has gone up and will continue increasing. Elderly people use the Internet to look for information on various topics such as health, travel, hobbies, news, finance, shopping and social activates. The examples illustrate the wide range of categories of sites may attract elderly web users who are creating a quickly growing and increasingly affluent target audience. Contrary to the popular belief of older people possessing lots of free time to squander, if using a website is too difficult for them, they will look for what they seek elsewhere like all other web users (Duxu Conference, & Marcus, 2014).
Various studies have been conducted over the past years with regards the use of web by older people in the form of surveys, researches and observations as well. Some of them have viewed old age people as a group whereas some others focus on certain problem that they face while using the Web. Studies have also discovered that impairment of sensory organs is also one of the main reason behind such an issue they face (Wagner et.al. 2010). Many old age persons have now become a regular user of internet and the number has been increasing year on year basis. American seniors although had been late adopters to technology but once into the same, their inquisitiveness to explore the digital life deepened. For them importance of web and usage of internet is basically for purpose of accumulation of data about health, news across the globe, travel plans, shopping as well as conduct a variety of social activities (Dunn, 2006).
Becoming old is a part of the life cycle and every one will age with time, hence due to this god made life cycle, the web developers should design websites for the older people also. Age affects sight, agility and the remembering power of a person. Due to a weakening eyesight, a person may not be able to perceive a particular image or symbol as expected to be, agility slows down one’s ability to respond to situations quickly, it is hampered with increasing age and lastly the power to remember the various information browsed also deteriorates with time and age (Barnard et.al. 2013). Therefore, it is a necessity to ensure all these factors are included while a web design is done, as it cannot be limited to a particular age group.
A research study was conducted where the participants were not only the aged Americans ranging between 65 years or more and the rest of the population but also within the senior population itself. The aged Americans were split into two varying groups, one comprising of those seniors who were technologically well equipped and are positive towards the benefits that the internet offers them, and the second consisted of elderly people who are less comfortable mainly due to health issues such dexterity or memory loss due to which they are unable to bond with the digital world both physically and psychologically (Olson et.al. 2011).
In the year 2012, Pew Research Centre discovered that aged people falling under the category of 65 and above were main users of the internet. Of the total number of individuals falling under this age group, a little above 50 percent say that they use the internet frequently. Whereas 47 percent of them admit that they access a high speed broadband connection which also eases in getting connected online. Further to our surprise, 77 percent of the aged people possess a mobile phone with an internet connection. The said chart below shows the total percent of users of cell phones, internet and broadband versus the above 65 category uses. This depiction has made it clear that continuous efforts will ensure that the same number increases every year.
Unfortunately, these gains even though is appreciable yet the rate of adoption of technology are still far behind the young Americans. Apart from the above figures, 41 percent of the seniors do not use the internet, 53 percent lack in possessing a high speed broadband service and around 20 percent still do not use a mobile phone (Smith, 2014). Simple reason behind the same is that nowadays seniors who are well educated and more acquainted with technology easily adapt to the internet in fact for them it is an indispensable part of their life as against those seniors who are not well educated and even lack the income levels. The graph below depicts that out of a total of 86 percent adults who visit the websites and go online as per 2013 statistics, 59 percent are seniors of the age above 65. However this percent was as low as 14 percent only thirteen years ago.
From a business point of view, if a company’s website is again designed to suit the older web users and providing them with a quality of the website that the younger users would also use, enable better results of the business. Due to the pace at which internet enables fulfilment of various tasks, reduces errors and is more entertaining to work upon, the number of users may also increase. Further to this the older generation has now become much better in using the websites, due to the designs which have been specifically designed to cater to the needs of the older age users and secondly the skill set of the seniors have also improvised off lately (Larsson et.al. 2013). Today’s generations older age group are also different from the old age individuals, which existed a decade ago. Today these seniors take a step ahead to learn how to use internet in continuation of their job in comparison to the earlier old age group people who made an effort to become internet savvy post retirement (Gellet,al, 2013).
It was discovered that elderly people were suffering from twin issues i.e. the issue with regards the designing of the website and secondly the issues regarding their approach towards learning something new. The first issue emphasised upon the user interface of these websites wherein the lack of ability was not as good as it should be. The font size or the colour of the text was not being used as per the requirements of the users i.e. the older user group for whom a smaller font size, a white colour, or such other light colour text was difficult to read due to sight problem. Thus, these developers should cater to these design issues. Another very striking feature of a web page is the hypertext links, which if not bold out, becomes very difficult for the user to read and click (Shapira et.al. 2007). Taking in consideration the limitations of the older audience with regards usage of the websites via the internet, special care should also be taken while designing complex drop down menus and should instead concentrate upon using the interface widgets and designs that does not command for pointing accuracy.
Apart from the design issues that should be well addressed as stated above, certain behavioral issues also act as a hindrance since they find uncomfortable in using the new versions. They lack the patience to retry if they fail in the first instance. Research has proved that elderly participants fail to scroll down a page and hence miss valuable data, thus making their effort futile and frustrating as well. Generally, they are seen to blame themselves for not being able to work smoothly with certain websites rather than blaming the designing of the same (van Deursen, & van Dijk, 2009). Due to all these behavioral issues also, the number of users are stagnated to maximum of a 60 percent of the total elderly population.
In spite of these challenges that the older generation people have to face when it comes to usage of technology, once they become well acquainted with the internet, they are seen spending most of their time on the internet. Of the total number who go online, more than seventy percent are seen visiting the websites on a daily basis. The older age group people have finally understood the advantages of internet and strongly say that life without internet is worthless. They feel information accessibility has been made easy with the help of internet, something they did not have during their time.
On studying the various design related as well as behavioral pattern related issues, it is highly recommended that the designers should be more alert and attentive with regards who the possible users of their websites be while designing the same. They should try to form such a design wherein the user will be indicated automatically that the page is not over and there is more information down the page. Designers should also avoid the usage of too much technical terms, which would sound Greek to the old age users who have never used internet during their era. The html links should change color once clicked and maximum web pages should provide html links only since it does not demand downloading of any specific software by the user for accessing the particular data (Slegers et.al. 2012) Lack of ambiguity and short and simple version should be written which makes it easy for the users to comprehend data.
Further to this, the general phrase ‘change is good’ is not true with this regards in the eyes of the elderly users, since many of them are seen to keep a record of the various steps they have to follow while visiting a website. Much changes make the website unusable by the elderly people since they find their recorded steps worthless and have to again undergo the entire process of understating as to how to visit the website which they hate to (Gonzalez et,al, 2015). Therefore the best way out would be to conduct an intensive research with regards the usability success of a new website design before the same is made public.
The lack of proper education and the growing age barriers are major contributors to the limited number of use of internet by them. It is thus evident that the population of the elderly people will increase each day in comparison to the number of young users. The study clearly connotes that simplicity can be inculcated into the designing of the websites which would make its usability more profound amongst the elderly public. The behavioral and design related problems are the basic cause of hindrances towards s successful elderly user of the internet. What is even more surprising is the fact that researches have shown that developed countries like America also suffer from the problem related to elderly crowd and the ease in suing the websites via the internet. Awareness regarding the benefits of making the most of the social websites and the news websites are still not understood in depth by this audience group and hence along with counting the statistical figures of the same, an awareness program should also be conducted frequently so as to increase the usability as well as the interest of the elderly people in using the websites via the internet.
Time takes its toll on people, as they get older. At some point, it happens to everyone hence it is a good enough reason for people to care about web design for older people. Some of the human features that are affected by age include vision, dexterity, and memory. Vision affects what users perceive by sight as reading certain words or perceiving certain images or symbols may become more difficult as one gets older. Dexterity affects how quick and accurate one’s movements are which also worsens, as one grows older. Memory affects both young and older users as it becomes difficult to remember certain things one saw on the website the longer time passes. All these factors should be considered during web design to ensure the user experience remains relatively consistent across all age groups who use the Internet.
A different research study was carried out to compare the way websites treat senior citizens a decade ago and in the present day (Antona&Stephanidis, 2016). Senior citizens, in this case, refer to Internet users over the age of 65. The study was also carried out on young users in the present day aged between 20 and 55. The majority of the users were based in the United States. For each round of testing which consists of quantitative testing, four main usability measures were obtained across a variety of tasks. The four include the success rate of completing a task, the time taken to carry out a task, which is a measure of efficiency, the rate at which errors were made and the level of satisfaction a user had on a given website.
| Senior citizens (10 years ago) | Senior citizens (present day) | Young users (age 20 -55) | |
| Rate of success | 52% | 55% | 74% |
| Time to complete task (min:sec) | 9:59 | 7.49 | 5:28 |
| Satisfaction rating (1-10, 10 best) | 5.8 | 6.7 | 7.5 |
| Error rate | 4.6 | 2.4 | 1.1 |
Results of Qualitative testing
Due to faster times being better, all the measures led to the same two conclusions. The websites currently developed have become increasingly better for use by senior citizens over the last decade, and the websites are still considerably difficult for the senior citizens to utilize compared to young users.
From a business perspective, redesigning a company website to provide older web users a similar quality in user experience as younger users will result in a significant increase in business from them based solely on the improved rate of success. There is a high chance the usage may increase even further as several tasks become faster, less prone to errors and more enjoyable to carry out.
There are two main reasons why older web users have become significantly better at utilizing websites. The first reason is due to the improved design of websites compared to several years ago, despite the considerable negligence on older web users’ needs, present-day websites are more accommodating. The second reason is due to a higher skill level of senior citizens at using the Internet. Compared to seniors a decade ago, present day seniors have a higher chance to have learned the methods of using computers while they were still working. Senior citizens who gained knowledge from company training courses and workmates have a higher chance of developing mental models than senior citizens who obtained computer skills post-retirement.
Chapter: Research Methodology
Preface
Research methodology is referred as one of the major procedures of doing systematic approach in order to solve any issues and carries forward the research in the appropriate way. On the other hand, research methodology is useful in a research in order to explain, explore as well as making the prediction of a specific research phenomena. In the particular section of the research, different methodological tools such as philosophy, approach, and design strategies along with methods for data collection are discussed and appropriate ones are selected with proper justification.
Research Philosophy: Positivism
Research philosophy deals with sources, nature as well as the development of knowledge in a research program (Taylor et al. 2015). The idea of creating knowledge may appear to be profound. However, it has been involving in the creation of knowledge as one of the major parts of completing the research. A collection of secondary along with primary data engages in the process of data analysis in order to answer the questions of the research, as well as the answer marks, help to create new knowledge. On the other hand, addressing the research philosophy in the research engages being aware along with the formulation of belief and assumptions in the specific research. Flick (2015) asserted that there are three types of research philosophies such as positivism, realism, and interpretivism generally used in a research. The choice of specific research philosophy has an impact on practical implications. On the other hand, there are vital philosophical differences between the studies, which emphasizes on the facts as well as numbers like analyzing the impact of website use by elderly people.
Justification for taking positivism philosophy
In the present research, positivism philosophy has been selected for using factual knowledge as well as lead to test the hypothesis or research questions in scientific as well as the statistical way that remains trustworthy for the research. Hence, positivism philosophy has been selected in the research and discarded interpretive as well as realism philosophy, which are unable for conduction of scientific and statistical analysis for the research.
Research Approach: Deductive:
Vaioleti (2016) stated that there are generally two types of research approaches such as deductive approach and inductive approach. The relevance of hypothesis to the present study is one of the distinctive points between deductive and inductive approaches. Deductive approach deals with testing of the validity of the assumptions taken for the research. However, inductive approach contributes to the emergence of new theories as well as making generalizations. In deductive approach, premises and conclusion need to be true; whereas in the inductive approach known premises are used in order to produce untested conclusions. Making generalized things to be specific is achieved in order to conduct the research (Smith 2015). However, inductive approach deals with the specific approach to make it are generalized. In deductive approach, the effects of elderly website uses are evaluated through developing hypothesis, which is tested at the time of research. On the other hand, the inductive approach does not engage with the formulation of hypothesis. It starts with the making of research questions and aims as well as objectives, which are required during the process of the research.
Justification for taking deductive approach
For the current research, the deductive approach has been selected. One of the major reasons for selecting deductive approach in the research is a selection of positivism philosophy. Secondly, the deductive approach enables the researcher in order to test the hypothesis if there elderly websites use is beneficial for elderly people or not. In this perspective, general data are acquired about the topic of research and needs statistical analysis from the statistical point of view. However, inductive approach concerns with devising the new theory for the research. As it has been aimed to test the hypothesis in detail regarding the development of theory, the deductive approach is selected over the inductive approach in the research.
Research Design: Descriptive
Panneerselvam (2014) stated that there are usually three types of research designs such as exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research designs used in the research. In the case of exploratory research, a formation of the problem for the research and hypothesis as well as clarification of distinctive concepts associated with the topic of the research is analyzed. Descriptive research consists of the options of exploratory as well as explanatory research. It mainly emphasizes on the explanation of the characteristics of the population through the process of data collection.
Justification of taking descriptive research design
For the present research, descriptive research design has been selected for making the clarification of the research topic from the hypothesis and comprehends the reasons as well as the effect of the research issues along with making the prediction of future occurrences of a specific research issue. It is not possible to do the same using exploratory and explanatory research design. In the present research, descriptive research design is useful to understand the benefits, limitations, challenges and overall impact of elderly websites uses on elderly aged people.
Data collection process: Secondary data collection method
The qualitative research method is usually interpretative and aims for providing a depth comprehension of the research. Qualitative research methods are based on the words, making perception and feelings rather than the numbers that include surveys, interviews and focus groups. Qualitative research methods with acknowledgment of the abstraction as well as making generalization along with philosophy are included in the research. However, qualitative data collection methods are unable to express human feelings as well as emotions. It is regarded that rich data regarding real life people as well as to understand the behavior of people can be analyzed in the research. However, qualitative research can be criticized for lacking generalisability and reliant on the subjective interpretations of the researchers as well as incapable of making replication that is subsequent for the researchers.
Justification for taking Secondary data collection method
In the present research, secondary data collection method has been selected for analyzing the overall impact of the elderly website uses on aged people. Different peer-reviewed books and journals are selected for collecting raw data for the research. The process is also helpful to understand the factors for the importance of website uses for elderly people and its impact on them. In addition, several opinions of different authors are used to analyze the data and get the appropriate result.
Data Analysis process:
Gast and Ledford (2014) commented that the accumulated qualitative data is required to analyze that gives accurate result regarding the impact of elderly websites uses on aged people. The process of data analysis has been conducted through several steps. Developing and applying codes is achieved. In this phase, coding is examined and making categorization of theme or data (Bauer 2014). On the other hand, the code is a short phrase representing theme or idea. The codes are required to assign in meaningful titles that are represented as the form of the theme. Unlike the quantitative methods, qualitative data analysis is applicable techniques, which is applied in order to produce particular findings. In addition, analytical as well as critical skills of thinking of the researcher act as an important role for producing same results. Along with these, word and phrase repetitions, primary and secondary comparisons of data, search for the missing information, metaphors and analogous included in this phase (Reynolds et al. 2014). After this step, summarizing the data is done in the qualitative data analysis process for the research.
Ethical issues
While conducting the research, it is ensured that to follow ethical principles of conducting the research. In order to avoid collation of the ethical principles included in the research, some principles are followed. Moreover, the collected data are under the protection of Data Security Act 2009. It restricts publication of personal information and ensures confidentiality of data.
Research limitation
Even the research will provide future opportunities, several difficulties have been faced during conduction of the research. There is the wide range of data available for the research that was difficult to analyze and get the accurate result. In addition, limited materials were analyzed for the collection of data for having limited financial sources to access online books and journals. However, some books and journals are before published than 2013 have not selected for the research.
Chapter: Discussion
Preface
In this chapter of the research, literature review is done from several articles and journals. Overview of the elderly website users is discussed in this chapter of the research. In addition, benefits and limitations regarding the topic are discussed in the chapter of the research. Along with these, policy contexts including informal learning regarding the usability of websites and internet are described in the chapter of the research. Moreover, technical specifications and measures for making the websites user-friendly are discussed in this chapter of the research.
Discussion
Computer technology has been embedded in the majority of people. However, it seems to forget that the technology is relatively new (Ammann et al. 2013). The mainstream of the society has adopted the technology quickly as one of the important parts of their daily life and opening up to get all possibilities that the technology can offer to people. On the other hand, the ever growing group of elderly people in the society is expected to increase its number from 20 % to 30 % by 2050 (Hashizume et al. 2014). With the development as well as the fact that is developed in the mind that opportunities that computer technology provides in the group of society need to be considered. There are several places where elderly people can use websites. They can use the website for banking purposes, developing community through social sites such as Facebook and Twitter (Arbelaitz et al. 2013). Along with these, in order to access several types of information regarding health issues and booking online tickets are the ways where elderly aged people can use websites. On the other hand, ongoing advancement of technology suggests that experience of younger people with computers and website will not be important benefits when they grow older (Wherton et al. 2015). In this perspective, it is not tough to imagine that looking at the random website as well as input devices like mouse and keyboard might be a great trouble for the users.
Moreover, World Wide Web is presently one of the most frequently visited electronic resources. It is likely to become the access ramp to the highway of electronic information of the next millennium Arfaa and Wang (2015) asserted that web access is ideally available to all people for creating another informational, economical as well as the social disparity in the society. In this situation, special efforts need to be put into making access to the web that is available to the people who have not yet got advantages like people with disabilities as well as elderly people. The terms “Universal Access” and “Design for All” specify a design methodology for the surfaces of computers, which does not automatically preclude the users with specific requirements.
Krueger (2014) stated that at present, there are 6 million older people across the UK that have not used the internet. In addition, 3 million older people (nearly 36%) feel out of touch with the modern life. The pace of technology is fast changing as well as its integration along with its application to the living life every day. Alpert and Womble (2015) argued that it is no longer an optional context. However, fast changing of technology is recognized as primary means of basic human right can be argued as the recent proceedings of the court in France (Rowsell et al. 2015). As per Lord Carter, Minister of Communications, technology as well as broadcasting has digital inclusion for providing a range of advantages. Currently, the best use of digital technology is involving with enhancement of lives along with life chances of every citizen and specifically for getting disadvantages in the place of living.
On the other hand, informal learning is one of the general terms used in education, which generally occurs outside of the structured education and curriculum. It encompasses interests of the learner within a curriculum in a regular classroom (Merriam and Tisdell 2015). However, it is not limited to the setting. The process is working through making conversation and exploration as well as enlargement with the experience. There is a clear objective link making a broader plan. However, the goal provides the learners with specific tools and requires to eventually reaching to the more complicated material. Informal education includes accidental as well as purposeful methods of collaborating new information. The process is based on discussion and emphasizes on bridging the gaps between the setting of traditional classroom and outside of the classroom. People can interpret information differently in this form of learning (Kessel et al. 2014). Thus, it is needed a structured curriculum that may not allow the learners understanding information. On the other hand, informal education is less controlled compared to the setting of the average classroom. Thus, in order to learn about the use of websites, this method can be used.
It is quite clear that utilization of present technologies, especially internet as one of the important methods to develop as well as maintain social contact is increasing among older population (Kaufmann et al. 2015). Exclusion from the technology increases with pattern and age as well as using the change year by year. The numbers of users utilizing the internet as well as social media websites are rising. As per the Pew Internet Research Centre, there are 53 % of Americans adults aged 65, older utilization of internet and email is included in that. In this perspective, it is required to expand the use of technology not just in website use, but also other users of the internet as well (Yang et al. 2015). According to the report, the utilization of technology is increasing in 65+ ranges of people (Mackert et al. 2014). There is the various benefit of using technology, which has come from the utilization of technology especially websites by the seniors on distinctive mediums of technology.
Social media is one of the major benefits of using websites among elderly aged people. Pew Internet Research Center has found that there are 34% of internet users’ aged 65. Use of social networking sites like Facebook is used by them. Facebook, Twitter, and Orkut allow senior people to connect with their family members as well as their friends (Guo et al. 2015). It enables sending messages, watching photographs and getting involved in doing chats with loved ones (Hook et al. 2014). It assists them to feel engaged with loved ones and adds to the sense of meaning as well as their purpose. On the other hand, email continues to be the most used technology for the seniors. There are 86 % of internet users age 65, who utilize email. 48 % of the users do it on a typical day (Vines et al. 2015). Email allows the seniors involved in the conversation with loved ones. In addition, news in websites helps them to be updated with the recent happenings across the world (Noordman et al. 2017). Some of the websites provide information regarding health care that helps them to take care of themselves.
Silverman (2013) argued that there are some limitations for using website among elderly aged people. The vision of the people requires a width of the visual field, light sensitivity, color perceptions, resistance for glaring, dynamic as well as static acuity and contrast sensitivity as well as visual search and processing are the challenges faced by the elderly users while using the technology for them. In this case, there are some factors that need to be considered while dealing with the process (Boyd and Archer 2015). In addition, web design guidelines for accessing interfaces are provided through some signs that are not reachable to them. Cáliz and Alamán (2014) commented that some websites contain unwanted things that can create awful experience among them. Moreover, factors need to be considered while using because the incautious mind can be attacked by hackers and can hack their secret information. Boyd and Archer (2015) stated that in this perspective, the World Wide Web Consortium, as well as Health on the Net Foundation, gives guidelines about the web accessibility for the elderly users. Liste and Sorensen (2015) mentioned that the website design for them is distinctive to the design of general-purpose websites for having a number of causes. Under the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as well as subsequent legislation, there are some duties on the service providers for making reasonable adjustments in order to access facilities, services as well as premises.
Liste and Sorensen (2015) commented that health information is available on the internet. However, retrieval of information can have issues for elderly people. On the other hand, the elderly group is not homogeneous and has the different level of IT literacy (Wentzel et al. 2016). People use technology making interaction and discussion of the medium to be effective in terms of communication with the research. Moreover, the research issues are generated by the things that would be helpful for the research. There are 73 % households across the UK using internet connection (Pascual et al. 2014). Older adults or the seniors have difficult times utilizing the internet as well as browsing websites that can be compared with younger adults as well as teenagers. The process of designing for seniors is comparatively easy and takes some notification (Bruun 2014). It has been noted that designing for the seniors needs the particular design that is better accessible for the user groups.
Seniors utilize websites in order to find information regarding health issues and bank online as well as research travel options, email, social sites and purpose of shopping. In this perspective, A SeniorNet Study 1998 has discovered that there is the major incentive for the older adults to have their own computer in order obtains information regarding healthcare as well as medical conditions (Denecke et al. 2015). In addition, according to a study made in 2003 found that searching for health information is one of the most popular activities on the internet for the older people.
The United Nations has estimated that there are 25 % of households with 65 age and 59% of households with 55-64 age found online (Ludwig et al. 2016). However, some challenges are faced during accessing the internet like poor design and readability, poor coding of the websites, complicated software as well as assistive technologies, little and no prior experience with the computers. The WAI-AGE project has taken an initiative that includes some activities regarding aging education as well as harmonization (Liste and Sørensen 2015). In addition, community work with the aging community is required to gain more direct input as well as contribution for the web accessibility solutions (Castilla et al. 2016). Revision of the existing as well as developing new educational materials would be helpful in this case, promotion of adopting as well as implementing the common set of the web accessibility guidelines for the older adults as well as people with disability.
In order to overcome the challenges faced by older people, it is important to organize web information for the older adults and writing online text for older adults as well as designing readable online text for elderly people is required for making the websites user-friendly for elderly people (Di Nuovo, et al. 2014). Making the web information easier for them including media information would be useful to eradicate the issues for seniors.
In order to make the web sites user-friendly for elderly people, some technical measures need to be taken.
- Breaking information into several short sections.
- Provide instructions clearly as well as the number in each step.
- Minimize the utilization of jargon as well as technical terms.
- Use of single mouse clicks.
- Use 12 or 14 point type size along with making easy for the users in order to enlarge texts.
- Allow additional space around the clickable targets.
- Utilization of high-contrast color combinations like black type against the white background.
- Give speech function in order to hear text read aloud.
- Give text-only versions for the contents of multimedia.
- Reduce scrolling.
- Select a search engine that utilizes keywords as well as does not need special characters of Boolean terms.
Summary
From the above discussion, it can be summarized that it is important to emphasize on some criteria that make the websites user-friendly for the elderly people. In this perspective, it is required to utilize conventional components for making interaction and making obvious that are clickable items and easy to target and hit. Also, minimization of vertical scrolling, increasing readability through maintaining standard font size and high contrast are helpful for the elderly people to access websites and gain its profitability.
Chapter: Analysis and Results
Preface
In this chapter of the research, accumulated data are analyzed using qualitative analysis technique. Themes are generated regarding the impact of elderly websites uses and discussed in this chapter of the research. In addition, different opinions of various authors are introduced that is helpful to generate appropriate findings for the research from which conclusion and recommendations can be provided in order to provide future opportunities for the research.
3.2 Analysis and findings
Theme 1: Developing society for all ages
It is important to develop the society where all aged people can contribute. In addition, a range of digital inclusion makes initiatives that have intended to provide nearly 600,000 people living in the sheltered housing access for new technology and essential support as well as mentoring (Castilla et al. 2016). The Government of the UK has signed up to Riga Ministerial Declaration on information and communication technology for inclusive society. It is continued for making continued prioritization of the technology and aging at European level (Bruun 2014). In this perspective, the action plan has aimed to enhance lives of older people.
Figure 2: Statistics of elderly aged website users
(Source: Panatto et al. 2016 p.541)
Liste and Sørensen (2015) commented that the UK Government has started to develop integral part of the future in health and social care through implementing technology in health and social care. National strategy for promoting the systematic growth of the telecare solutions is considered as one of the important parts of the spectrum of the care home. Liste and Sørensen (2015) mentioned that it has vital contribution for evaluating methods about tele-health and social health. Cáliz and Alamán (2014) commented that telecare has the huge capability for supporting individuals living at home. It is significant that the Government has provided 80 million Euro in order to use appropriate and effective technologies. However, the investment ahs failed providing fruitful result often.
Theme 2: Technical challenges for accessing websites
It is unfortunate that considering all things of technology has some limitations for elderly people. One of the great examples is accessing websites among elderly people. While aging procedure is distinctive from others, it is required to have some fundamental changes that are seen to be missing at current websites (Noordman et al. 2017). Vision and hearing are the most challenging aspects of elderly people because, after 40 years of ages, the lens of people starts to harden that causes a condition called as presbyopia (Guo et al. 2015). It is one of the normal parts of aging, which makes increasingly difficult for reading texts that are small as well as close. Thus, the websites containing small font size and low contrasts make some difficulties for aged people. On the other hand, color vision declines with age and become worse at making the differentiation between the similar colors.
In addition, user faces issues like advertisements in accessing websites. It has been estimated that nearly 200 million people across the world utilizing ad-blocking programs. The particular technology is growing source of tension in the particular ad tech industry. The sources are estimated that cost of ad blockers estimated nearly $22billion in 2015 (Noordman et al. 2017). There are also several small as well as midsized publishers having trouble in keeping up with new ad formats of video and technology. Moreover, overreliance on the social is one of the major challenges faced by the website users while accessing websites.
However, there are a large proportion of people over 65 years aged faces some hearing loss (Yang et al. 2015). On the other hand, motor skills decline with age that makes harder to utilize computers in several ways. For an instance, it is seen that people use mouse with two hands. In this case, they have a lot of issues hitting the interface targets as well as moving from one particular thing to another. In addition, older people have various relationships compared to young people. For an example, they have seen same doctors for long times. However, due to health and mobility issues, the world is avoidable to the elderly people in terms of physically as well as socially (Kessel et al. 2014). During testing of the user session, life stage is one of the major challenges for elderly people in order to access web sites. Moreover, experience with the latest technology can be the barrier in order to adopt the changes and gets benefits for using websites.
Theme 3: Risks in accessing web sites
Even there are several opportunities for using websites in elderly people; there is some risk involved with the use. There are lots of wring information provided in the websites as anyone can upload or post on public websites that misguide people and sometimes cause irritations for them. In addition, phishing is one of the common tricks used on the websites, which has been hacked and pretending to legitimate. eBay, as well as PayPal, are most common targets for phishing scams. Alpert and Womble (2015) argued that there are predators, which hang out on the internet waiting in order to get unsuspecting people in the dangerous situations. Moreover, addiction is social sites and some other websites can cause several issues in health as well as the public life of the elderly people. On the other hand, it is very easy to waste time using the internet. Thus, extent use of the websites can hamper daily lives of elderly people.
However, the lot of unscrupulous businesses has sprung up on the internet in order to take benefits of people. Hackers create viruses, which can get personal data of the users and ruin valuable data (Hashizume et al. 2014). There are lots of cheater sites available over the internet that can bring several losses to the elderly users. In addition, identity thieves utilize information that are found online in order to drain bank account and can ruin credit rating. Phishing is one of the common tricks utilized on the websites, which have been hacked and pretended to be legitimate. Popular social networking sites like Facebook are the targets for doing scams.
Theme 4: Overcoming challenges for accessing the websites
In order to overcome the challenges, some measures need to be taken by the designers and developers along with other responsible members of the society. The designers need to avoid font size below than 12 pixels in the websites. In addition, maintaining high contrast in the writing remain effective and friendly for the elderly users in accessing the websites. It is required to avoid blue for vital interface components. It is important to test the product utilizing screen readers. Providing subtitles during audio and video content is basic for user experience.
On the other hand, it is needed to minimize the distance between elements of interface, which are likely to be utilized in the sequence. However, it is required to ensure that at least 2 millimeters are required for differentiating elements. Arfaa and Wang (2015) argued that it is significant to pay attention to the sizing in the human interface guidelines. Moreover, it is required to avoid small screen devices for the elderly users of websites and does not rely on the SMS in order to convey vital information (Arbelaitz et al. 2013). Creation of small groups including elderly aged people can be helpful to develop a community, which can be helpful to make aware and able to minimize issues in using websites.
Theme 5:Design Issues
Design issues revolve around the poor web design practices such as bad readability and click ability. One of the most common aging problems is a drop in visual acuity, in spite of this there are numerous websites with tiny type. Websites with senior citizens are a major audience should utilize no lower than 12-point fonts as the default. Another good web design practice for all websites should be allowing users to alter the text size at will, especially if the default font size for the website is tiny.
Hypertext links are a critical design component, and a good design practice is ensuring they are created with large text to ensure easier readability as well as making them stand out more for clicking. Tightly packed links should be avoided by making use of white space to isolate links reduces inaccurate clicks and boosts the speed at which users select the right link. This standard also applies to command buttons and other interaction entities, which should all be sufficiently big to enable simple clicking.
Moving interface features such as drop-down menus and hierarchical walking menus are troublesome for older users who may not always be steady when using a mouse. An ideal alternative is to utilize interface widgets and designs that do not need pinpoint pointing accuracy.
Theme 6: Behavioral Issues
In the studies carried out, a large group of senior users illustrated traits which pointed to them being uncomfortable attempting new options or hesitant to explore. For example, when they did not succeed in their first try at a task, some of them were reluctant to attempt other options. The younger users in the group were more likely to try out alternative options such as site search, online chats, or contextual help to locate the solutions to their queries and finish tasks. Senior users had a higher likelihood of giving up on a task as compared to younger users.
When the users in the group encountered challenges, the senior ones blamed themselves more as compared to younger users. However, the majority of the blame should go to websites and their developers because several of the issues could have been avoided had the developers been more attentive to proper usability practices for developing for older users.
The hesitation in older users resulted in a slower and more methodical way of carrying out tasks. Unfortunately, the slower and more methodical approach to site usage did not always give the older users better results (International Conference On Universal Access In Human-Computer Interaction, Stephanidis&Antona, 2014).
Summary
From the above discussion, it summarizes that developers and designers of websites have an important role to make the web sites user-friendly. On the other hand, people from society need to take the step to gain advantages of internet technology using web sites that will be helpful to serve various purposes like health information, shopping and internet banking. However, they need to be aware while accessing web sites because hackers can hack their secret information and cause unwanted situations.
Recommendations
Supportive Design
A supportive design practice is for web developers to design websites that utilize varying colors to visibly distinguish between visited and unvisited links. When websites do not follow this guideline, senior users, as well as all other age groups, may lose track of pages they have already visited. It is confusing when a site alters its standard link colors and even more confusing particularly for older users when the same color is utilized for all links regardless of they being visited or not.
Another ideal web design practice is having forgiving or flexible search engines and forms on websites. Older users have a more difficult time utilizing strict search engines and forms. Simple query typos prevent them from obtaining the information they desire.
Error handling and error messages should be as simple and clear as possible. Senior users have difficulty reading error messages due to obscure or imprecise wording or poor message placing on the web page making it easily overlooked among a variety of alternative design features.
Avoiding navigation alterations
A good web design practice is when redesigning a site, attempt to maintain a certain level of consistency with a previous version, especially if the previous version was user-friendly (Funabashi &Grzech, 2005). Every user detests change; however severe alterations affect senior users the most. Several senior users maintain a list of steps and instructions on the way websites they visit work. If a website changes greatly then the notes and instructions become void and the users have a difficult time adjusting to the new design. Some users may even completely abandon a site they used frequently in the past, after its redesign due to the difficulty in understanding it. Before carrying out a major redesign of a website, web developers should perform extensive usability research on workflow steps, information architecture, and other foundational elements.
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