Design Research

To create our design style, we did further research on the best design techniques and features to use for interfaces targeted towards elderly users. By the end of our research, our findings were the following:

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• Users 75 years and older commonly experience changes in their vision. Because of this, many users favour large font sizes and large elements that have a high visibility.

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• San-serif fonts are preferred as they are more legible than serif fonts, and all text should be at least 16px.

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• Anything that’s meant to be read or clicked should be scaled up.

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• Avoid using muted or pastel colours, and whenever possible use saturated colours.

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• High contrast is important for users to differentiate content and aids in depth perception.

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• Combinations of red and black attract the most attention from older audiences with vision impairment.

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• For those with conditions that make it difficult to see colours, it’s best to avoid using colours to convey messages.

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• When designing for users who have poor memory avoid dividing screens into multiple actions and keep the user focused on one task at a time.

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• Simple backgrounds are effective in avoiding confusion and distractions.

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• Icons should be appropriately labelled.