C20: Designing Technology for an Aging Population

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Tuesday, 28 July, 13:30 - 17:30 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time - Canada)

Jeff Johnson (short bio)
Adjunct Professor, Computer Science Dept, University of San Francisco, U.S.A.
jjohnson@uiwizards.com
jajohnson9@usfca.edu

Modality

on-site

Room: TBA

Target Audience

Researchers/academics, Students, Professionals, Industry

Requirements for participants

Course participants should bring their own laptop, tablet or smartphone

Abstract

Over 40% of the population of the developed world is over 50 years old, and that percentage is projected to continue to rise. The developing world is close behind. That is too huge a target market to ignore.

Life in today's developed world is heavily reliant on digital technology. Most people can hardly avoid using it. Unfortunately, most new technology is not designed to accommodate older adults' lack of experience in the digital domain, or the changes that people often experience as they age. Some technologists argue that this problem will fade away as today's young "digital natives" age. But in fact, the problem will worsen as technology progresses and life-spans increase, unless designers and developers take care to design digital products and online services that are accessible, appealing, and empowering to this large and growing segment of the population.

If an app, website, or digital appliance's target audience includes older adults, certain aspects of its design, design process, and deployment become more important. This course, based on the instructor's co-authored book Designing Technology for an Aging Population: Towards Universal Design, 2nd ed., describes age-related factors that affect ability to use apps, websites, and appliances; presents design guidelines that reflect the capabilities, usage patterns, preferences, and attitudes of older users; and provides audience exercises. Take-aways:

  • demographics of users of digital technology,
  • age-related factors affecting ability to use digital devices, apps, and online services,
  • common design flaws that decrease usability for older adults, illustrated with visual examples,
  • why just improving accessibility and usability will not close the gap in technology adoption by older adults,
  • guidelines that can help designers avoid common pitfalls.
  • design processes that can make older adults more willing to try new technologies and perhaps adopt them.

Benefits for attendees

In this course, participants will learn:

  • statistics about the world’s aging population and the gap between young and old in the use of digital technology,
  • why this gap will not go away as today’s older adults die off and today's younger people age,
  • age-related factors that affect the usability of digital user interfaces,
  • how poorly-designed apps, devices, and websites can present barriers for older people,
  • guidelines for designing in an inclusive way, so technology can accommodate older adults,
  • how older adults' attitudes towards new technology affect their acceptance or rejection of it,
  • special considerations and methods for designing and evaluating digital products and services with older adults,
  • recent research about older adults' use (or avoidance) of currently-emerging technologies: robots, voice assistants, autonomous vehicles, and smart homes,
  • experience in evaluating and comparing two websites aimed at older adults.

Course Content

  • Introduction and definitions
  • Demographics of digital technology usage, by age
  • The problem: digital technology is often unfriendly to older adults
  • Motivation for solving the problem; why it won't go away
  • Focus on accessibility: age-related changes and characteristics, with guidelines
    • vision
    • motor control
    • hearing & speech
    • memory & cognition
    • knowledge
    • combinations of age-related differences
  • Break
  • Small group exercise: comparing two travel websites aimed at older adults
    • evaluate, compare, contrast
    • compare small-group findings and discuss
  • Beyond accessibility: promoting adoption and avoiding abandonment
    • Older adults' attitudes towards technology
    • How to conduct user research and usability evaluation with older adults
    • How to design with older adults, not for them
  • Emerging Technology and Older Adults, summary of recent research
    • Socially Assistive Robots
    • Autonomous Vehicles
    • Voice UI and Voice Assistants
    • Ambient Assisted Living & Smart Homes
  • Summary, wrap-up, evaluations

Bio Sketch of Course instructor

Jeff Johnson is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Francisco (USF-CA).  He is also Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consulting firm.  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 the late 1980s and early 1990s he was Chair of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.  In 1990, he co-chaired the first Participatory Design conference, PDC'90.  He has taught at USF-CA, Stanford University, and Mills College, and in 2006 and 2013 was an Erskine Teaching Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.  In the 2000s he served on the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGCHI Public Policy Committee.  In 2013 and 2017 he gave talks in the prestigious Authors@Google talk series.  He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy, a recipient of SIGCHI's Lifetime Achievement in Practice Award, and an ACM Distinguished Member.  He has authored or co-authored many articles and chapters on Human-Computer Interaction, as well as the books GUI Bloopers (eds. 1 & 2), Web Bloopers, Designing with the Mind in Mind (eds. 1, 2, & 3), Conceptual Models (eds. 1 & 2, with Austin Henderson), and Designing Technology for an Aging Population (eds. 1 & 2, with Kate Finn).