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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