Crafting websites tailored to the needs of older adults requires some knowledge of the audience’s potential conditions and preferences. Brands catering to seniors or wanting to add more of them to the customer base can attract new customers by tweaking their designs.
If you sell products aimed at older adults, such as hearing aids or scooters, checking your site’s accessibility is a must. Banks, grocery stores and medical offices must cater to several generations. Ensuring everyone has an excellent user experience (UX) is crucial to success.
Potential Accessibility Issues for Seniors
According to the latest Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, older people are more likely to have a disability–around 46% of those over 75 report at least one condition. The most common issues include mobility and cognition. However, conditions can also include vision and hearing impairments.
As people age, they may deal with arthritis and vision issues, leading to struggles, particularly when using a small screen device. Tapping a tiny link or button may be impossible for someone with low manual dexterity.
Ways to Improve a Website Experience for Older Adults
Many of the principles designers use for excellent UX apply to creating a positive design for older adults. Adding a checklist of items to consider goes a long way toward keeping your site friendly to multiple age groups.
1. Increase Sizes
Since some seniors struggle with dexterity, arthritis and pain, making call to action (CTA) buttons larger can improve their interaction with your page.
Statista estimates that there are 311.36 million U.S. mobile internet users in 2024, with a projected increase to 333.18 by 2029. Some older adults only access websites via their smartphones. Imagine being in their shoes, trying to tap on a tiny little link when they struggle to use their hands already.
Going slightly larger positively impacts anyone with dexterity issues who wishes to access your site from a mobile device. Larger sizes also help those with visual struggles.
2. Improve Contrast
Older adults may find their vision isn’t as crisp as it once was. Some suffer from macular degeneration or cataracts. As people age, they often need readers for close-up text, too. Some won’t bother with the glasses and will struggle as text runs together.
One thing that helps older adults is using high contrast in your design. If your background is white, the text should be black or navy blue. Use big fonts that are clear and easy to decipher. Avoid scripts and decorative fonts whenever possible.
3. Tweak the Navigation
Simplify the navigation on your site. While Generation Z has grown up around technology and doesn’t remember a time without digital information, baby boomers grew up without computers. Many are quite tech-savvy, but they could struggle if you start moving navigation around or making elements challenging to find.
Excellent navigation benefits all your users, so spending time adding some breadcrumbs and making popular pages easy to find is worthwhile. Make your logo clickable so the user can easily return to the home page.
4. Perfect Visuals
Take the time to fix any issues with visuals. Even photos should have some contrast so they are easy to read. Add alt tags for those using screen readers.
As nearly two-thirds of readers still opt for physical written copies of content such as books when available versus digital content, some seniors may prefer to print pages to read or save for later. Ensure you have crisp displays that translate well to print, as well as an option to print content easily available.
If you have a text overlay on an image, follow best practices and use a serif or sans serif font, make it big and ensure it contrasts with the background.
5. Make Settings Adjustable
Make your design customizable to meet the needs of users from different generations. Code the option for them to change the text color, font size or lighting. You may need to add a video that shows how they can adjust things to suit their needs.
If you’re uncertain how to create personalized options, grab a code from a web design tool and insert it in your files.
6. Implement Error Correction
Look at your error correction models. Make forms as simple as possible to clarify which step to take next.
Your error messages should offer feedback to correct user mistakes. Imagine you want only their first name and email, but they fail to provide an extension on the email, rendering the information useless.
Offer a reminder that an email looks like name@provider.com and show them how to correct the mistake. You will have to spend a little more time coding your forms, but the result will be a senior-friendly form that is more enjoyable for those with less experience filling in digital forms.
Test With Your Users
Including all ages in your designs requires planning and persistence. Take the time to test out any design changes with your users. Gather a team of customers who will give honest feedback about what they like and what needs improvement. Over time, your design will become more accessible to older adults, and you’ll gain higher conversion rates and happier clients.
