Notes

[NOTES SECTION This is where the important information is: for each slide.]

Permission and Reference

Note to presenters:
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The "Web Accessibility for Older Users" presentation material is copyright© W3C and licensed under the W3C Document License, with the exception of some of the images. Additionally, you are granted permission to create modifications or derivatives of the material.

All that means that you can copy, change, translate, distribute, and present the "Web Accessibility for Older Users" presentation material as long as you include the reference information below as source material:

Web Accessibility for Older Users, A.M.J. Arch, ed. W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), January 2009. www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/@@@@

Images

Credits for the images and information on permission to use the images are included in the Notes section where the image or data first appears.

 

Notes

Today I'll be talking about ... see text on the slide

Note to presenters:
Remember that some people may not be able to see the slides, for example, people who are blind or people listening to an audio-only recording of the presentation. Make sure that you say all of the information that is on each slide.

Notes

The Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation (WAI-AGE) project is funded as a European Commission IST Specific Support Action with the goal of increasing accessibility of the Web for the elderly as well as for people with disabilities in European Union Member States.

The project is specifically intended to:

• develop a better understanding of the needs of the ageing community in the context of existing Web accessibility guidelines
• work with the ageing community to obtain more direct contribution into W3C/WAI work
• revise existing, and develop new, educational materials to better reflect the needs of the ageing community
• pursue standards coordination to promote adoption and implementation of a common set of guidelines

But lets first look at who is affected ...

Notes

The United Nations has forecast .... "Globally, the number of persons aged 60 years or over is expected almost to triple, increasing from 672 million in 2005 to nearly 1.9
billion by 2050." and that "... by 2050 most oldest-old (over 80 years) will live in the developing world (278 million out of 394 million)"

In the European Union, the EU25 group of countries are predicted to to have nearly 30% over its population over 64 years by 2050, up from 16% in 2000 to 18% in 2010 to 21% in 2020 to 25% in 2030.

Many counties will experience greater changes than this [move to next slide]

Note to presenters:
Several slides follow with specific country demographic forecasts for you to select from.
You may like to contrast your own country with a low growth and/or a high growth country.

Refs:

UN - http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WPP2004/2004Highlights_finalrevised.pdf

EU - http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/social_situation/docs/ssr2005_2006_en.pdf

Notes

These figures show the ageing trend in the UK ... while the proportion over 50 years is not forecast to grow as rapidly as the proportion over 65 years, it does represent people still in the workforce who may be starting to experience some age-related impairments such as vision and hearing decline (around 18% of the population).

Note to presenters:
Don't forget to read the numbers out for those who may have low vision

UK Office of National Statistics:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=8519

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/NPP-2006/wuk065y.xls

Discuss the numbers and emphasise that in Japan it is currently 1 in 5 over 65; within 30 years it will be 1 in 3
Japan's proportion of people over 65 years is the highest in the world

Source:

Reuters, undated - http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/agingjapan

Reuters, 17 Sept 2007 - http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUST2888420070917

Spain is forecast to experience similar ageing patterns to the EU average for the next decade, but will exceed the EU average by the 2050.

[read out the data]]

Source: EUROPE IN FIGURES — Eurostat yearbook 2006-07 (Chapter 1 - Population) PDF

The United States is forecast to experience lower ageing patterns compared with the EU. [read out numbers]

For example, the US is forecast to have 16% of its population over 65 year of age in 2020, while Europe forecasts 21%.

[read out the data]

Source: US Population Projections (released 2008) - see Table 3

Note to presenters:
Forecasts for all EU countries are available from EUROPE IN FIGURES — Eurostat yearbook 2006-07 (Chapter 1 - Population) PDF

This table and chart highlights the forecast differences across Europe over the next four decades.

In 2005, most countries were close to the EU average of 1 person over 65 for every four of working age (1:4).

The EU average in 2010 will be 26%, forecast to rise to 40% in 2030 and 53% in 2050 (i.e. a change from 4 workers for every retiree to 2 workers for every retiree).
Some individual countries within the EU vary considerqably from the average [read out the contrasting figures for Netherlands, Austria and Italy]

These forecast changes between 2010, 2030 and 2050 emphasises the need to support older people in the workplace (note that many EU countries are currently raising the retirement age) and in the community - an accessible Web contributes to this.

Note to presenters:
European presenters may like to extract the actual numbers for their own country from EuroStat and contrast with EU average (see also the Eurostat Yearbook [PDF])

Notes

These previous statistics are resulting in working ages being extended, and with that goes lifelong learning.

Furthermore, all forms of community participation are going online ... read list.

Older people are expected and wanting to participate.

Impairment often accompanies the ageing process - vision loss, hearing loss, motor skill diminishment.

Vision decline often starts in a person's mid-40s. It affects 16% of people 65 to 74 years, but 46% of those over 85 years. In older people vision decline includes:

• Decreasing ability to focus on near tasks, including a computer screen
• Changing colour perception and sensitivity - less violet light is registered, making it easier to see red and yellows than blues and greens and often making darker blues and black indistinguishable
• Pupil shrinkage - resulting in the need for more light
• Decreasing contrast sensitivity - an 80 year old typically has 80% less contrast sensitivity than a 20 year old

Hearing starts to decline at around 50 years, affecting 19% of people 61 to 80 years but 75% of people over 81 years.

Motor skill diminishment includes arthritis, with joint stiffening, and Parkinson's Disease, with associated hand trembling, making mouse use difficult or impossible for some. Arthritis is estimated to affect at least 50% of people over 65.

Note to presenters:
More detailed data is available from Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review

Notes

Cognitive impairment is also common. While Dementia affects part of the older population (1.4% of people 65-69 years increasing to 24% of people over 85 years), forms of mild cognitive impairment (or MCI) are much more common. MCI can result in:

• problems with short term memory (which may result in a person forgetting the purpose of a web site visit if they get "lost" on the site)
• concentration and distraction issues also common
  (Maybe mention the multiple animated advertisements that appear on some pages.)

Note to presenters:
more detailed data is available from Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review

Notes

There is a common misconception that older people can't use and don't use computers, or even need them. Older people are rapidly coming online - they are the fastest growing group. For example, in the UK a 2008 survey indicated that 30% of all those over 65 years have used the Internet, up from 18% in 2006.

And older people undertake similar activities to younger people - such as health, travel, banking, government interaction, email, social networking - even if they mightn't use some applications, such as Facebook, as often as some younger people.

Note to presenters:
More data about older people online is available from the Literature Review.

Notes

To better understand the needs of the ageing community, the WAI-AGE Project undertook an extensive Literature Review. This review included a broad range of literature including scientific papers and popular articles. The range of literature reviewed included those that ... ...

Notes

In reviewing the literature, the Project found that:

• disability and impairment issues relating to older users were not well understood by industry or by users themselves
• there was a strong tendency in much of the literature to 'reinvent the wheel' and not build on previous work
• some recommendations reflected a lack of technical knowledge, e.g.
  • some recommendations suggested that it was not good to have users double-click (something that is unnecessary on the Web)
  • most of the literature ignored the possibility of browser adaptation or the use of assistive technology
• there was a very apparent lack of mention of the work of W3C and the Web Accessibility Initiative and to not draw on the experience from previous work relating to people with disabilities using the Web
• very few articles considered the use of adaptive strategies (such as changing browser colour and text size) or assistive technologies by older users

Many of the requirements for making websites accessible to people with disabilities match the requirements of older users:

• text size - an ability to increase it from the designers setting
• contrast - having a suitably high contrast for text (and other important information)
• links - clearly identified from the regular text and clearly identifying the link destination
• headings - clearly standing out from the text, and clearly identifying the sections to follow
• navigation - to ensure users know where they are going

WCAG 2.0 addresses these requirements

Usability features also overlap with the requirements of people with disabilities

• fonts - sans-serif seems preferred with left justification (for left to right texts) and avoiding italics, underlining, etc
• layout - consistent layout across the site (and consistent with other sites) to aid recognition and familiarity
• forms - grouping like questions; making compulsory fields very obvious; giving examples; providing clear error messages and help
• Predictability, consistency and tolerance - meeting users expectations as to how a web site is presented and behaves

WCAG 2.0 covers more usability requirements than previously - this will assist older people and people with disabilities

Some other observations were made from the literature:

• many older people are still new to the Web, especially among the older old, and have not had the opportunity to become familiar with computers and the Web. This inexperience is currently an influencing factor in many of the studies discussed in the Literature Review
• with declining memory and concentration common among older people, information overload was a problem that many observers reported, with many pages containing more information than some people could assimilate
• most of the articles considered the experiential usability factors of a website; very few cosnidered the technical, or coding, aspects that may also assist
• online forms were crtisiced heavily by some, wity suggestions made for improvements such as gruping of material, and error reporting
• although hearing decline is common among older people, very few studies looked at the implications of this impairment

 

Notes

The project has been interacting with WAI Working groups and providing some ideas for consideration in forthcoming guidelines or as techniques for existing guidelines.

Much of the remainder of the project will concentrate on incorporating the requirements of older people into existing WAI documents and developing new documents to help promote the need for including older people as well as people with disabilities during he development of websites and web applications.

Notes

Many existing WAI documents will benefit from having the needs of older users more explicitly considered:

• the Web Accessibility Business Case is being expanded to incorporate more benefits related to the ageing population
• the BAD demonstration pages are being updated to incorporate more requirements of older users
• Involving Users is being expanded to incorporate older users, and to consider the complete development process
• How People with Disabilities Use the Web will be expanded to better describe situations involving older people
• The Training Resource will be updated to include WCAG 2.0 and the requirements of older users

Notes

New resources are planned to build on the Project's findings and the benefits of WCAG 2.0:

• Overlapping Relationship Between Web Accessibility and Usability - will explore the overlap within the context of the needs older users
• Developing Accessible Web Sites for Older Users - will describe how to use existing Web accessibility guidelines to create websites for older users
• Improving your Web Experience by Using Adaptive Strategies - provides a general introduction to the use of adaptive strategies and assistive technologies with an emphasis on the needs of older users
• Responding to Organisations with Inaccessible Web Sites - will suggest different options for contacting organisations which have inaccessible Web sites
• Sample Articles - will be reusable material for people writing about older Web users

Anyone interested in this topic is invited to:

• monitor the Project (new outputs will be announced on the Project page - www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE)
• comment on the documents while they are being developed
• participate in the Project task force or one of the WAI working groups
• undertake some research to fill in some gaps in our understanding (see next slide)

 

Some of the gaps in our understanding of the requirements of older people using the Web relate to:

• Hearing loss and multimedia - benefits of captions and/or transcripts
• Cognitive decline - impact of Mild Cognitive Impairment, including short-term memory loss and distractibility, on website site use
• Text decoration and fonts - what font weight is preferable?
• Navigation and menu preference - deep versus shallow navigation for ease of comprehension
• Small page changes - are AJAX-driven small page updates noticed? How can they be made more obvious?
• Social networking - what improvements to these sites might be required to better accommodate older users?
• Web applications - what improvements might be required to better accommodate older users?

 

Before asking for questions, please mention that the WAI-AGE Project is a European Commission IST Specific Support Action funded by Sixth Framework Programme.