Lecture 8

Question 1

What is a motivation for Inclusive Design for older people?

Answer 1

Demographic argument

• Ageing population: rising 65+ population, increasing age-related conditions

Question 2

How have older people been conceptualised in HCI?

Answer 2

They have been conceptualised in two different ways:

• IN NEED: Older people seen as individuals in need of help to make ICT more accessible
• A USER GROUP: Older people are portrayed as individuals e.g. personal interests and aspirations, social interaction and inclusion, empowerment and creativity.

Question 3

What functional abilities decline in older people?

Answer 3

Vision

• Reduced contrast sensitivity and colour perception
• Age-related near-sightedness and near-focus, making it difficult to read web pages

Physical Ability
- Reduced dexterity and fine motor control

Hearing
- Difficulty hearing higher-pitched sounds and separating sounds

Cognitive Ability
- Reduced short-term memory, difficulty concentrating, and being easily distracted.

Question 4

WCAG for older people: Perceivable (4)

Answer 4

Text size: allow resizing, provide explicit text resizer

Text style and text layout: avoid justified or centred paragraphs, avoid long lines in italics, provide text style adjustments

Colour and contrast: ensure good contrast, adjust background colour

Multimedia: Ensure sound levels are distinct, provide captions/transcriptions

Question 5

WCAG for older people: Operable (6)

Answer 5

Links: Make links obvious, included visited links. Make focus clearly visible.

Navigation and location: Provide navigation aids, ensure location feedback

Mouse use: Make focus obvious, make targets big enough.

Keyboard use and tabbing: Make everything available through a keyboard, have a sensible focus order.

Distractions: Allow pause and stop of content, request update rather than update automatically, play sounds on user request

Sufficient time: allow extending default time

Question 6

WCAG for older people: Understandable (5)

Answer 6

Page organisation: Provide descriptive headings and labels

Understandable language: Use clear and simple language

Consistent navigation and labelling: Keep repeated components the same throughout, including name and order

Pop-ups, new windows, page refresh and updates: warn users, only active on user request

Instructions, input assistance, error prevention for forms: describe input needed and in what format, clearly highlight required fields, help validate

Question 7

WCAG for older people: Robust (1)

Answer 7

Robust content and reliable interpretation: ensure backward compatibility with older web browsers

Question 8

What is co-design?

Answer 8

Users participate actively in the entire design process

Much more involved than UCD, especially at “fuzzy front end”.

Researches become more like a facilitator

Designers help express what users want.