Please read carefully the Instructions for the "Web Accessibility for Older Users" Presentation <www.w3.org/WAI/presentations/ageing/> for an introduction, tips, and permission to use.
The Notes section for each slide contains important information. Make sure you can read the Notes. On this slide, the notes start with "[NOTES SECTION: This is where the important information is. . .]"
Copyright 2006-2009 W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio)
[NOTES SECTION This is where the important information is: for each slide.]
This material is also available in presentation (PPT) format from http://www.w3.org/WAI/presentations/ageing/
Note to presenters:
Last Updated 25 September 2009
Welcome!
Introduce yourself (and your organization) and your interest in Web accessibility and ageing.
Today I'll be talking about Web accessibility and older people, based on findings provided by the W3C WAI-AGE Project.
The presentation will introduce the WAI-AGE project, highlight the changing world wide demographic situation, discuss the prevalence and impact of age-related limitations and older people's use of the Web, introduce some of the findings from a literature review, highlight some of the requirements of older users and the role of WAI accessibility guidelines in meeting these, and talk about the current activities and outcomes of the project.
European Commission funded project focused on:
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 older people as well as for people with disabilities in European Union Member States.
The WAI-AGE project is being undertaken by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and is specifically intended to:
More information is available from the WAI-AGE project page
Let's first look at the motivations behind this project: changing demographics and age-related impairments
Leading the Web to Its Full Potential:
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where organizations located all over the world, and involved in many different fields, join W3C to participate in a vendor-neutral forum for the creation of Web standards. Member organizations include technology companies, telecommunications companies, universities, government departments, and disability organizations. Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public, work together to develop open and royalty free Web standards.
W3C's mission is:
This is about ensuring that the evolution of the Web is for everyone, everywhere, on everything. W3C operates from MIT (US), ERCIM (France) and Keio University (Japan). Key technologies developed through a multi-stakeholder, consensus process, include HTML, CSS, XML, SVG, SMIL etc
W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software, and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web. In order for the Web to reach its full potential, the most fundamental Web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the Web to work together.
Note to presenters: More information about the W3C
Works to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities through:
Within the W3C, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) operates fully under the W3C process and pursues accessibility of the Web for people with disabilities through five primary activities:
People with disabilities include older people who experience age related functional changes and are rapidly increasing as a proportion of the population in most countries as the following slides indicate.
Note to presenters: More information about WAI
United Nations global demographic forecast
Year | 65+ years | 80+ years |
---|---|---|
2010 | 7.6% | 1.5% |
2020 | 9.3% | 1.9% |
2030 | 11.7% | 2.3% |
2040 | 14.2% | 3.3% |
2050 | 16.2% | 4.3% |
Source: UN World Population Prospects
The UN estimates that the global population of 65 years will grow from 7.6% in 2010 to 11.7% in 2020 to 16.2% in 2050 with the population over 80 years also increasing - from just 1.5% in 2010 to 4.3% in 2050. Europe today has one of the the oldest populations in the world, and is expected to continue to experience growth in its older population ... (see next slide)
UN References:
Note to presenters:
The following slide provides some European statistics on the demographic changes. Several slides are provided in the Appendix with specific country demographic forecasts for you to select from - you will probably just select one or two.
The point to emphasize is that the population is getting older.
Demographic forecast for the EU
Year | 65+ years | 80+ years |
---|---|---|
2010 | 17% | 5% |
2020 | 20% | 6% |
2030 | 24% | 7% |
2040 | 27% | 9% |
2050 | 29% | 12% |
Source: EuroStat (PDF)
In the European Union, the EU-27 group of countries are predicted to to have nearly 30% of their population over 65 years by 2050, up from 17% in 2010 to 20% in 2020, 24% in 2030, and 27% in 2040. The proportion over 50, many of whom are still in employment, is forecast to increase from 36% in 2010 to 47% in 2050 and the proportion of older-old (those over 80) will also increase - from 5% in 2010 to 12% in 2050.
These forecast changes over the next few decades highlights the significance of this older group and emphasizes the need to provide support for older people:
An accessible Web contributes to this.
References:
Definition:
"EU-27" represents the 27 countries that comprised the EU as at 1 January 2007
Note to presenters:
Several slides are provided in the Appendix with specific country demographic forecasts for you to select from as an additional slide to emphasize the local situation if appropriate.
With ageing people often experience changing abilities - the next few slides look at the impact and prevalence of age-related impairments that affect Web use ...
Note to presenters:
While these following slides present four different impairments (ordered by their moderate/sever prevalence for older people) it should be noted that many older people can experience multiple impairments that may collectively, even if mild, have more impact than the individual impairments may imply.
Impact:
Prevalence:
Hearing starts to decline at around 50 years and affects a person's ability to hear higher pitched sounds as well as discern the foreground from background audio such as music or other sounds.
Some hearing loss is experienced by 47% of people 61 to 80 years and 93% of people over 81 years.
Moderate or severe hearing loss or profound deafness is experienced by 20% of people aged 61 - 80 and 75% of people over 80.
Reference:
Note to presenters:
Additional background on ageing and hearing loss is provided in Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review
Impact:
Prevalence of significant vision loss:
Vision decline includes:
Vision decline often starts in a person's mid-40s with 86% of Australians over 40 requiring reading glasses to correct for near vision. Significant vision loss (that can't be corrected) affecting everyday life is estimated to affect 16% of people 65 to 74 years, and 46% of those over 85 years in the UK.
Reference:
Definitions:
Note to presenters:
Additional background on ageing and vision decline is provided in Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review
Impact:
Motor skill decline can result from many conditions including arthritis, essential tremor, and Parkinson's Disease
Prevalence:
(Conditions most commonly reported)
Motor skill decline impacts on dexterity and can result from many conditions, for example arthritis with associated joint stiffening and reduced fine motor control, and essential tremor or Parkinson's Disease with associated hand trembling, making mouse use difficult or impossible for some and also affecting keyboard use. In particular, older people with physical impairments may have difficulty clicking small links, selecting radio buttons, and using fly-out or pull-down menus.
Arthritis is estimated to affect at least 50% of people over 65;
Essential tremor (one of many forms of tremor) is estimated to affect up to 5% of those over 40 and up to 20% of people over 65; and
Parkinson's affects around 4% of those over 85.
Reference:
Note to presenters:
Additional background on ageing and physical decline is provided in Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review
Impact:
Navigation, comprehension, and task completion can be affected by
Prevalence:
(Conditions most commonly reported)
Cognitive decline is also common, though only dementia and mild cognitive impairment are commonly reported. While Dementia (including Alzheimer's disease) is experienced by some older people (1.4% of people 65-69 years increasing to 24% of people over 85 years in the UK), forms of mild cognitive impairment (or MCI) are much more common, affecting over 20% of those over 70 years. MCI can result in :
Reference:
Note to presenters:
Additional background on ageing and cognitive decline is provided in Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia accounting for between 50% and 70% of all dementias (Alzheimer's Australia)
Older people are making similar use of the Web as younger people, but maybe with different frequency ...
The Web provides older people with unprecedented opportunities for:
With the proportion of older people growing rapidly, the Web is increasingly important to enable older people to remain active and productive as they age. In particular it enables older people to:
See also
Older people are experiencing web accessibility barriers due to:
Web accessibility is an imperative.
The demographic forecasts and the age-related impairment statistics show an increasingly older population. As seen, many of these older people are likely to experience impairments, sometimes multiple impairments, that will impact on their Web use.
In the next sections we will see that older people are experiencing web accessibility barriers due to:
Result: Web accessibility is an imperative in our information society!
Let's see what a review of the literature told WAI-AGE about older people's Web accessibility needs ...
WAI-AGE literature review included material about:
See "http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wai-age-literature.php" for details
To better understand the needs of older users, the WAI-AGE project undertook an extensive literature review. This review included over 150 resources including scientific papers and popular articles. The range of literature reviewed included those that discussed:
Throughout all this literature was the strong sense that older people were enthusiastic about being online, though some didn't see the benefit before being online. There are now lots of "success stories" about older people using social networks, interacting with society via blogs etc, shopping and banking online, and much more, in addition to the majority who just use it regularly like younger people do.
WAI-AGE analysis showed a significant overlap with W3C/WAI recommendations
It was also observed that:
In reviewing the literature and analyzing the findings and recommendations, WAI-AGE found a large overlap between the identified needs of older users and the WAI recommendations, particularly WCAG 2.0. However, it was also observed that:
Definition:
"older old" are considered as the group of people over 80 years (or sometimes over 85)
Note to presenters:
Inexperience is likely to diminish as a factor, but will older people adapt to the ever evolving Web as quickly as younger people?
This could be a point for discussion.
Additional observations include:
WAI-AGE made some other observations from the literature:
All these observations have implications for ongoing work and also suggest some research needed to fill gaps in our understanding and knowledge.
The implications of the analysis and observations are discussed in the following slides ...
Let's look at what role the WAI guidelines play in meeting the Web accessibility needs of older people ...
W3C/WAI guidelines help older Web users
Web accessibility depends on several components working together:
The following slides describe some of the key findings in relation to the WAI guidelines ...
Reference:
Definition:
Requirements include:
WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 addresses these
WAI-AGE found that many of the suggested requirements for making Web sites accessible to people with disabilities match the requirements of older users:
WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 addresses these requirements
See WAI Guidelines and Older Web Users: Findings from a Literature Review for details on how WCAG 2.0 covers the needs of older users.
Usability improvements especially help older people and people with disabilities:
WCAG 2.0 also addresses these areas
Usability improvements that particularly help older Web users also help people with disabilities:
These usability aspects benefit many other users too.
WCAG 2.0's principles - Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust - address a broad range of usability issues.
Reference:
Browsers are the entry-point to the Web:
WAI's User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) helps address these issues.
Browsers play the key role in accessing the Web - they are the entry point.
However, many older people, and especially the older-old (over 85 years), are often new to computers and the Web - facing a steep learning curve. While this situation will decline as more older people come online and gain experience, it is still a contributing factor at present. Some studies of training older people in Web use found that a simplified browser interface aided learning and understanding, though some wanted a browser with additional features as their familiarity and experience grew.
The low numbers of studies discussing adaptive strategies like changing text size or color schemes suggests that browsers could make these adaptations more obvious and available to users. Trainers and supporters of older people online need more information about how to adapt the user agent, or even the operating system, to adjust the interface for the age-related impairments that may be being experienced. Some browsers do not even work with some assistive technologies, reducing users' choice.
The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) can help make the learning process easier and Web interactions better.
More information on WAI guidelines:
Older people contribute to the Web:
WAI's Authoring Tool Guidelines (ATAG) help address these issues.
The Web is also about contributing as well receiving information - being an "author" as well as a "reader".
Many people who are still in the workforce experience age-related impairments . These people may be required to contribute to their employer's website and intranet. Hence, the content management systems (CMS) and authoring tools used within an organization need to be accessible themselves and need to create content that is accessible.
User-generated content via wikis, blogs, reviews, etc is increasing. Older users are increasingly using online office-style applications, social networking, and photo sharing applications. Older people with impairments have many of the same problems as people with disabilities in accessing some of these newer Web developments because they are not developed to be accessible.
Older people are also involved in developing and maintaining Web sites - either professionally or for leisure.
More information on WAI guidelines:
As we have seen, WAI guidelines are necessary for an accessible Web for many older users as well as for people with disabilities. WAI-AGE will be revising existing resources and developing new educational resources to better explain how the WAI guidelines address the needs of older users with age-related impairments. 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 the development of Web sites and web applications.
One of the issues identified is the duplication of work in this area and the potential for divergence. WAI-AGE has found that older people and people with disabilities have a lot of requirements in common and we need to encourage researchers, website developers, and the community to work more closely together for an accessible Web. We need to avoid potential fragmentation through reinvention of requirements.
Because many older people do not consider themselves to have disabilities, there is a need to raise awareness of Web accessibility issues, and also of adaptive strategies and assistive technologies that could make Web use easier. Organizations for older people also need to be encouraged to take an interest in Web accessibility and participate in the development of WAI guidelines and promote Web accessibility.
WAI-AGE is developing resources to inform developers:
The web industry (both organizations with Web sites and applications, and web designers and developers) requires information:
Older people also need to be included more in the Web design and development process.
WAI-AGE is developing a range of materials to increase industry awareness and support industry implementation.
Note to presenters:
The planned work is discussed in WAI-AGE Deliverables
WAI-AGE is developing resources for older users and their supporting organizations:
An increased awareness of Web accessibility is also required among older users themselves, people who are providing training and support, and the organizations that represent them. In particular there is a need to:
WAI-AGE is developing materials to support user awareness and facilitate the promotion of Web accessibility to older users and older peoples' organizations.
Note to presenters:
The planned work is discussed in WAI-AGE Deliverables
Several existing WAI documents will be revised, including:
New documents will be developed covering topics including, including:
Several existing WAI documents will benefit from having the needs of older users more explicitly addressed. These include:
New resources are planned to build on the WAI-AGE findings and the benefits of WCAG 2.0. These include:
Note to presenters:
The revisions and new work are all discussed in WAI-AGE Deliverables
Working together to avoid fragmentation through:
The reinvention of competing Web accessibility standards for older people poses a source of standards fragmentation, and reduces the level of adoption and implementation of accessibility solutions. Also the low level of participation by older users and organizations representing older users in standardization, including W3C/WAI work, poses a potential source of fragmentation. The Why Standards Harmonization is Essential to Web Accessibility document provides more information about the impact of fragmentation for older people and people with disabilities.
The WAI-AGE project focuses on inviting participation by older people and organizations representing older people in W3C/WAI work, on explaining the relevance of the W3C/WAI guidelines for older people and people with disabilities, and coordinating with standardization organizations to ensure the adoption of unified Web accessibility requirements.
Some gaps that need investigation:
WAI-AGE identified some gaps in our understanding of the requirements of older people using the Web including:
Note to presenters:
Depending on your audience, this slide may not be relevant.
People are invited to participate by:
People can actively contribute by:
See Participating in WAI for WAI participation details.
Note to presenters:
Please help us improve this presentation by giving us feedback on what worked and what might be improved - that can be one of your ways of contributing to the project. Consider asking the audience for feedback afterwards, too.
The WAI-AGE Project is supported by:
Note to presenters:
Before asking for questions, please mention that the WAI-AGE Project is a European Commission IST Specific Support Action funded by
Sixth Framework Programme.
Additional material that can be used depending on the audience.
W3C and WAI
Demographics - you may like to select from among the following slides for your own country:
Note to presenters:
Usually you should keep the total demographics slides to 2 or 3 as a maximum. The main message is that population demographics are changing and the population is getting older (very quickly in some countries).
Forecasts for all EU countries are available from EUROPE IN FIGURES — Eurostat yearbook 2006-07 (Chapter 1 - Population) PDF
UN forecasts for most regions and countries are available from the UN's Population database
Local forecasts may be available from the national statistics organization or government department in your country
International vendor-neutral consortium developing key standards for the Web
Within the W3C, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) works to help ensure the Web is accessible to people with disabilities through:
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international vendor-neutral consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C's mission is:
Within the W3C, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary activities:
Note to presenters:
Population over 50 years
Population over 65 years
Source: UK Office of National Statistics
This slide shows the ageing trend in the UK ... the number of people over 50 years will rise from 35% in 2010 to 38% in 2020 and 39% in 2030, while the population over 65 years will rise from 17% in 2010 to 19% in 2020 to 22% in 2030 (and by 2030, the UK is forecast to have 53,000 people over 100 years!). At the same time the proportion of 'older old' (over 85 years) is expected to increase from 2.2% in 2010 to nearly 5% in 2030.
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 (for instance the proportion of people with hearing loss increases sharply at around age 50, and 10% of UK blind and partially sighted people are in the 50-64 age group [76% are over 65 years]).
Population over 65 years
Source: EuroStat (PDF)
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
Population over 65 years
Source: Reuters
Discuss the numbers and emphasize that Japan currently has 1 in 5 people over 65; within 20 years it will be 1 in 3
Japan's proportion of people over 65 years is the highest in the world, and the UN forecasts that the "population of Japan is projected to remain the oldest in the world with a median age of 55 years in 2050."
At the same time, Japan's total population is expected to decline from around 127m people at present to less than 90m people by 2050.
Population over 65 years
Source: US Census
The United States is forecast to experience lower ageing patterns compared with the EU. 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
Australian projections are ... [read out numbers]
Australia is forecast to experience lower ageing patterns compared with the EU average. For example, Australia is forecast to only have 19% of its population over 65 year of age in 2026, while Europe forecasts 36% in 2025.
Source: ABS Australian Population Projections (2006 TO 2101) - Catalogue # 3222.0