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Summary |
To learn how seniors use the Web, we conducted three series of usability tests with 44 seniors, mainly in the United States, but with a smaller number of session in Japan to ensure the international scope of the findings. We define "seniors" as people over the age of 65. (In the United States alone, 12 million people older than 65 were online as of October 2005 -- a customer base you can't afford to ignore.) Most of our test users were in their 70s, but we also included some people who were 80 years or older, and several people between 65 and 69. We found that current websites are twice as hard to use for seniors as they are for younger users. Probably not that surprising, since Web designers are usually fairly young. However, the Web does not have to be this hard for seniors. Our research found many specific guidelines that can make websites easier to use for seniors if they are followed during the design. Following the usability guidelines for seniors can increase the sales of almost all e-commerce sites (since many seniors have substantial assets). The guidelines can improve the quality of government services for a group that consumes many such services. The guidelines can improve the reputation and usage statistics for any company that would like to serve seniors. And companies serve their retired employees better if the guidelines are followed for extranets or other designs targeted at retirees. Read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox about the project The 46 design guidelines are based on usability tests of the following sites:
Richly illustrated with 75 screenshots, showing designs that worked well for seniors as well as designs that caused them usability problems. Many of the usability guidelines also apply to a proportion of users aged 50 or older. In total, 20% of Internet users are impacted by the issues discussed in the report. By 2010, American seniors will spend about $25 billion per year on e-commerce purchases if current trends continue. Fixing the usability problems documented in the report will increase sales to $77 billion per year. Even bigger amounts are at stake in terms of the potential for non-ecommerce websites, such as home banking, online investment management, self-service scheduling of medical appointments, and many other types of sites that won't attract very many seniors unless they shape up. |
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Table of Contents |
125-page report by Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen
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Who Should Read This Report? |
Running a similar international usability study yourself to collect comparative design lessons from a large number of websites would cost about $100,000. Please help us continue publishing low-price reports by buying a site license if you have colleagues who will read the report. If you only need it for yourself, then that's obviously what the single-user license is for. If somebody "gives" you a copy, then please buy a download anyway to keep prices down in the future.
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