Designing for Older Adults: Universal Design

When is it OK to ignore the needs of 1 out of 3 of your potential customers?

To be exact, we're talking about 35%. That’s the expected percentage of the U.S. population that will be over the age of 50 in just five years. When is the last time you thought about making sure your designs work for someone whose fingers are not as nimble as they used to be? Or someone who can’t quite hear or see the way they once did?

Knowing what it means to be your user is half the battle. This month we have a rare opportunity to hear from distinguished speaker, teacher, and writer Jeff Johnson on the topic of designing for older adults. He will point out pitfalls of designing for an older demographic. He will discuss age-related factors that affect usability, and share design guidelines that reflect the capabilities, usage patterns, and preferences of older web users.

Jeff will change the way you think about your design and research work, helping you to prioritize features and functions to support your aging target audience.

Discussion topics:

• Demographics for virtual environments

• Human factors of interfaces (computers, devices, internet)

• Common design problems that decrease usability

• Design opportunities and guidelines

Agenda:

6:00 - 6:30 pm Mingle and network

6:30 - 7:30 pm Presentation

7:30 - 8:30 pm Post-networking

Light snacks and beverages will be provided courtesy of Websense User Experience & User Assistance.

About Jeff

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Jeff Johnson is President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consultancy (uiwizards.com (http://uiwizards.com/)). He also is a co-founder and principal at Wiser Usability, Inc., a consultancy focused on usability and accessibility for adults over 50. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, he worked as a UI designer and implementer, engineer manager, usability tester, and researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Sun Microsystems.

In 1990, Jeff co-chaired the first Participatory Design conference, PDC'90. Since 2004 he has served on the SIGCHI U.S. Public Policy Committee. He has taught at Stanford University and Mills College, and in 2006 and 2013 he taught HCI as an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker, and in 2014 was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy. He has authored or co-authored many articles and chapters on Human-Computer Interaction, as well as the books GUI Bloopers, Web Bloopers, GUI Bloopers 2.0, Designing with the Mind in Mind, Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design (coauthored with Austin Henderson), and Designing with the Mind in Mind, 2nd edition.

Food, Beverage, and Venue Sponsor

Special thanks to our generous sponsor, Websense User Experience & User Assistance.

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