Consider Their Age

The term ‘kid’ typically applies to someone who’s in grade school (but also younger than 12 or 13). So, the general range you’ll be working with will likely be ages 6-12.

Since children develop and learn so rapidly, these ages will need to be further segmented to ensure that your UX has the best design possible. For example, someone in kindergarten is going to have different interests and levels of comprehension than someone in the fourth grade.

Let’s take a look at what you can expect from two age ranges.

6 to 9 years Old

Children of these ages display a rapidly-growing vocabulary and are beginning to understand concepts and writing on a more complex level. Since they’re still so young, though, they’re often more interested in sounds, colors, symbols, etc. when browsing online.

10 to 12 Years Old

As these children progress toward the end of elementary school (and perhaps even enter middle school), their reading comprehension and level of basic understanding will progress even further. At this age, copy becomes more relevant as opposed to colors or symbols.

They’ll also be able to navigate through a website efficiently and are often familiarized with touchscreen, interface patterns, etc.

Designing The User Experience

Regardless of how old your audience is, there’s a handful of concepts that you’ll want to focus on when designing your website. It’s important to note, though, that the level of efficacy will often vary depending on your audience’s personality traits.

For example, those who are heavily interested in sports will likely respond in a different way than a child who is more introverted and has an interest in science fiction.

Let’s dive into what you should focus on.

Color Choice

Brushing up on basic color theory can go a long way in helping you choose the perfect color palette for your website. While it’s important to choose a set of colors that are aesthetically pleasing together, they should also embody the energy your brand seeks to deliver.

For example, let’s take the aforementioned child interested in sports (Child A) and one interest in science fiction (Child B).

A website that Child A might visit could be one of a coach who offers private training sessions for soccer. Given soccer’s quick pace and the lush colors one typically sees at a soccer field (green grass and blue sky), bright and energetic colors are more appropriate here.

This means hues like lime green, sky blue, and even reds/yellows/oranges.

Child B, on the other hand, may find themselves on a website for an online game or one that has content about books, movies, etc. of the genre.

These experiences come at a far slower pace than soccer (storytelling, reading in general, etc.), so your color palette should include things like navy blue, black, purple, and other colors that are naturally associated with calmness or darkness.

Functionality and Aesthetic Design

How easily your audience is able to use and navigate through your site is often correlated with how old they are.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to incorporate less-complicated design choices when targeting children of a younger age. This means that children aged 6 to 9 will likely be overwhelmed by an abundance of links, large chunks of copy, etc.

Rather than links, clickable buttons are a great way to help a younger child find their way around your site’s layout.

By contrast, older kids are more likely to read copy, click links, and have an overall easier time going through your site’s pages. They’re still unlikely, though, to read anything related to how your company functions.

This means pages that discuss your mission statement or your company’s background should be kept separate from the content you want your audience to focus on.

In terms of aesthetics, a minimalist approach should be taken in order to eliminate any distractions. Removing unnecessary fluff and having a streamlined layout will go a long way when it comes to user experience.

The Text

Younger children will respond much better to short sentences with larger text as opposed to the formatting you’d find on a typical web page. Those on the upper end of your audience’s age range likely won’t have issues with reading regular copy.

Incorporating pictures, though, (especially as a method to supplement a difficult concept) is a reliable strategy no matter how old your audience is. As you may expect, younger children will often respond better to more images vs. text.

Your vocabulary and sentence complexity should also coincide with your audience’s age, as it can be very easier for a younger child to feel lost or an older child to feel as though your site is ‘too easy’ for them.

Creating ‘How-To’ sections on your site’s pages is also a reliable way to ensure your audience doesn’t run into any issues. Things like downloading, printing, or uploading are often difficult for those who haven’t done them before.

Optimizing User Experience For Kids on Your Site Can Seem Difficult

But it doesn’t have to be.

With the above information about user experience for kids in mind, you’ll be well on your way toward ensuring your younger users are able to find everything they need.

The post Designing a User Experience for Kids appeared first on UX Blog.

However, advancing technology often leaves the elderly behind. Fewer seniors can get on board with the latest innovations. It’s time to adapt our technology for elderly users — they can make up a large percentage of your audience, after all!

Not sure where to start? Take a moment to study your website. Web design is one of the first corners to improve and we’ve got 6 crucial tips for you to follow:

Adjusting for Text Size

Keep in mind that a lot of the factors discussed below relate to failing vision. This is because eyesight is one of the first abilities humans lose with age. People can expect problems as early as the age of 40, such as difficulty reading small print.

The problem with technology for elderly people is that font size often gets neglected. It’s easy to forget about their difficulties and simply use a 12 point font size because it’s the industry standard.

You can use that same font size but make sure you add the option to increase the text size. Allow elderly visitors on your website to reach a 32 or even 36 point font size if it helps them read your content. Instead of scaring them away with tiny text, give them the freedom to make it bigger and bolder to fit their failing vision.

Color Variation Matters

Your choice of colors matters too, not only for seniors but for people who are color blind too. Everything might look neat and pretty to you but to a senior, they might experience difficulty distinguishing some text from the background.

Take a moment to use tools on sites like WebAIM or Color.a11y to test how your site currently performs.

Don’t stick with a “one colorblind solution for all” because there are multiple types of color blindness. Instead, feature a color slider or at least different color viewing modes to give elderly and color blind people more options.

Videos and Text-To-Speech

Did you know most elderly people prefer to watch the news instead of reading it? This goes back to the issue of vision complications that come with aging. As people get older, their vision weakens and reading becomes more of a chore than a delight.

Workaround this by including videos on your website. If you can, feature both a video and its written version on the same page, similar to how IGN.com does with their movie reviews. This gives the elderly the option to enlarge the text and read, if they so choose, or to simply watch the video.

Don’t stop with videos.

You might have seniors with almost no vision capabilities visiting your website. How can they enjoy your videos if they can’t see the content? The perfect solution is to include text-to-speech.

Clicking and Tapping

While the number of seniors using smartphones increased in the past few years, a large percentage still relies on tablets instead. It makes a lot of sense when you stop to think about it.

Don’t forget that as people age, their motor skills decrease, making it difficult to use something as basic as a mouse or a tiny smartphone screen. Tablets have a larger screen, which makes it easier to read the text and also easier to click or tap onto interactive elements such as buttons or links.

Take advantage of this information!

First off, make sure everything they can tap or click on is big enough and spaced far enough from other interactive elements. It can get extremely frustrating for a senior to tap the screen only to realize they hit the button beside the one they intended to tap. They might quit instead of going back to the previous page.

The common recommendation is to ensure interactive buttons are at least 11 mm diagonally and 2 mm apart from each other. That said, make sure buttons and links can scale up along with the font. This guarantees elderly people can make them bigger to suit their individual needs.

Even Easier Navigation

It shouldn’t take more than three clicks to get to any page on your site. If it does, seniors might get lost navigating through the pages and give up.

Also, don’t assume that older people automatically understand the “language,” so to speak, of navigating a website. Younger folks might identify the hamburger icon as the button to access the menu but older people might not. If you can, include text to ensure seniors don’t get lost in translation.

Do you want one of the best examples of easy navigation? Check out the website for MAC Cosmetics. The few picture symbols they use are easy to identify, such as the mail icon for new subscriptions.

Test Technology for Elderly Users

Believe it or not, one of the best websites fit for elderly use is Amazon. It stumbles a little bit in terms of navigation but the web design and its use of text-to-speech and clear distinction between text and elements help it stand out from the rest.

Of course, you can’t copy Amazon inch-per-inch.

The solution is to constantly test your web design. If possible, invite two to three groups of seniors and have each group navigate through different design drafts. Discover which of the two or three drafts clicks with them.

Make sure to include a questionnaire or survey. Find out what elements of the web design they liked, which parts they encountered difficulties and their suggestions to improve the UX and UI.

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UX helps to shape the way search engines like Google view your website, and happy visitors who spend longer browsing your pages can help your website to perform better among search engine results pages.

It’s easy to assume that UX boils down to your website’s design and usability, but its content plays a significant role in building a positive experience for your visitors. Engaging text can prevent bouncebacks and solve the problems of prospective customers in a way that can build brand loyalty.

Let’s take a deeper look at some of the many ways in which UX is driven by great content:

People remember how you made them feel

According to Single Grain, the world of UX is built on how businesses can make customers feel, as opposed to the types of service they receive. This can apply to the products you sell and their packaging – as well as the content you supply.

There are plenty of ways in which you can improve your UX through content designed to make users feel good. In the age of AI, it’s possible to deliver personalised content to visitors based on how cookies interpret their browsing preferences.

Furthermore, free content to support newsletter opt-ins like eBooks and how-to guides can single-handedly make customers feel more rewarded for their loyalty and interest.

Evergreen content can make the incorporation of freebies much easier, and if you can cover a subject where content is unlikely to find itself out of date within a year, this can be an exceptional UX-boosting way of guiding new customers towards your funnel.

Good content is the cornerstone of good UX

If on-site usability forms the foundation of your business, great content is the cornerstone.

Just because your website loads in less than a second and has the easiest menu system to navigate online, it doesn’t mean you can expect visitors to stick around. Graphics and design only get you so far. Be sure to craft content – whether it’s text-based or multimedia – that’s capable of entertaining your visitors and informing them ahead of deciding to make a purchase.

Retail websites like ASOS and Mr Porter have mastered the art of building alluring websites to attract visitors as well as engaging content that will keep them browsing their pages for hours.

By producing engaging content that encourages users to stick around, you’re helping to limit the bouncebacks your site receives – letting Google’s crawlers understand that your pages are worthy of higher SERPs.

Remember to craft valuable content at all times

Google is so powerful that it’s hard to get anywhere online without attempting to appeal to the search engine.

Remember that most people using Google are looking to get answers to questions or queries. The best performing content on Google tends to anticipate the questions that users are asking and answers them accordingly.

For the best UX, be sure to build content that looks to answer the questions that users may have. This helps to reward them when they navigate onto your pages. Make sure you use keywords wisely to help bring more visitors to your website too. However, try to avoid spamming your keywords in a click-bait manner – this will only generate bouncebacks.

The post How user experience is driven by great content appeared first on UX Blog.

User experience prioritizes making life easier for your customers. By improving your website for UX, you’re making it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for. That quick, easy experience will stay in their minds, which benefits your brand’s reputation.

A negative experience, on the other hand, could cause you to lose customers forever. In fact, 88% of online shoppers won’t return to a site after a bad experience.

Don’t risk losing customers. Instead, keep reading for the five website UX improvements you can make to strengthen user satisfaction and keep them coming back for more.

1. Speed It Up

According to Google, 53% of mobile site visitors will leave if a page takes longer than three seconds to load. Meanwhile, the probability of a bounce increases 123% as page load time increases from one to 10 seconds.

In other words, you could end up losing customers if your pages aren’t loading quickly.

The first step to improving your website UX is to speed up your load times. Otherwise, people will bounce, which will cause your search engine ranking to drop.

People expect pages to load quickly. Make sure your site is optimized for mobile devices as well. Otherwise, you’re scaring off a big piece of your website traffic.

Speeding up your site will make it easier to use and explore.

Then, people will stay on your page longer and find what they’re looking for.

2. Leave Breathing Space

A page that’s stuffed with content can feel overwhelming. Instead, give your content breathing space. White space will give your website a clean, elegant look.

You can also use white space and minimalistic design trends to improve the visitor’s website user experience.

White space makes it easier for people to explore your content. You can also use space to guide people from one piece of information to the next. Ultimately, you can guide them to a form, allowing you to convert visitors into customers.

3. Add Search

Make it easy for people to find what they’re looking for. Start by adding a search field to your website. Keep it at the top of the page so it’s easy to find.

If people can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave!

4. Improve Readability

Make sure to structure your page content as well. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Shorten sentences
• Use bulleted lists
• Don’t underline words that aren’t links
• Make sure the font type and size are easy to read
• Use black text on white backgrounds
• Keep paragraphs short (one to three sentences)

You can also use website headings design to break large pieces of information apart.

5. Declutter

Remove any website element you don’t need. Instead, focus on engaging your visitors and conveying important information. Decluttering unessential elements will give you more space for your buttons, forms, and other lead generators.

Awesome UX: 5 Essential Tips to Drastically Improve Website UX

By taking the time to improve your website UX, you can keep visitors on the page and exploring your content. Then, you can turn those visitors into sales! Grow your business with these five tips for better UX design.

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