San Francisco: Designing Technology for an Aging Population

If a website or app’s target audience includes older adults, certain aspects of its design become more important. This talk describes age-related factors that affect ability to use websites and apps, and presents design guidelines that reflect the capabilities, usage patterns, and preferences of older users. We'll cover:
• the demographics of users of digital technology,
• age-related factors affecting ability to use computers and online services,
• common design problems that decrease usability for older adults, and
• design guidelines that can help designers avoid these common pitfalls.

This talk should be intriguing to designers and developers of all levels, QA engineers, usability testers, and managers.

Jeff Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Francisco and a principal at Wiser Usability, a consultancy focused on elder usability. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, he worked as a UI designer, implementer, manager, usability tester, and researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun. He has taught at Stanford, Mills, and the University of Canterbury. He has received a Lifetime Achievement in Practice Award from the ACM SIGCHI (http://www.sigchi.org), and is the author of GUI Bloopers (1st and 2nd eds.), Web Bloopers, Designing with the Mind in Mind (1st and 2nd eds.), Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design (with Austin Henderson), and Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population (with Kate Finn).