Design considerations for older people

After reading an article about a study into usability for older audiences, we decided it would be best to have the following considerations when designing the visual part of our prototype:

• High contrast in colours
• No scrollbars
• Allow them to make writing bigger
• Make it obvious that they have clicked on a button (i.e. fade/change colour)

The general principles involve making transitions between states of the system obvious and intuitive as possible. Other ways in which good usability could be achieved include:

• Being very clear on what functions are available and their purpose
• Making the user feel aware of the purpose of their context and its position in the system as a whole to make navigation simple
• Making use of established mental models (such as having a items organised on shelves, unlike current methods of online shopping)
• Simplicity through a limited set of controls with obvious functions
• Allowing users to recognise as much as possible, rather than recall (using images of products for example)
  

These will be in addition to more general design heuristics, some of which were discussed in previous posts.