Notes

[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/

Notes

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.

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 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:

• Develop a better understanding of the needs of older people using the Web and how existing Web accessibility guidelines meet those needs
• Encourage participation of older people and organizations representing older people in W3C standardization and development
• Revise existing WAI educational materials and develop new materials to better reflect the needs of older users, and to support industry and users
• Pursue standards coordination to promote adoption and implementation of a common set of accessibility guidelines for people with disabilities and older users

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

Notes

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:

• To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web

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.

Notes

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:

• Ensuring that core technologies of the Web (HTML, etc) support accessibility
• Developing guidelines for Web content, user agents (browsers and media players etc), and authoring tools
• Facilitating development of evaluation and repair tools for accessibility
• Conducting education and outreach
• Coordinating with research and development that can affect future accessibility of the Web.

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.

Notes

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:

• World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat

Notes

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:

1. In the workplace
   (note that many EU countries are currently raising the retirement age and people are also choosing to work longer)
2. In the community
   (providing an increased ability for people to participate economically, civically and socially, and to age in place)

An accessible Web contributes to this.

References:

• Eurostat Population and Social Conditions [PDF] for 65+ and 80+
• Eurostat - Statistics database - Population projections for 50+

Definition:

"EU-27" represents the 27 countries that comprised the EU as at 1 January 2007

Notes

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:

• RNID Facts and figures on deafness and tinnitus

Notes

Vision decline includes:

• Decreasing ability to focus on near tasks, including a computer screen
• Changing color perception and sensitivity - less violet light is registered, making it easier to see reds and yellows than blues and greens, and often making dark blue and black indistinguishable
• Decreasing contrast sensitivity from pupil shrinkage - resulting in the need for more light and higher contrast (an 80 year old typically has 80% less contrast sensitivity than a 20 year old)

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:

• RNIB Statistics - numbers of people with sight problems by age group in the UK
• Global Burden of Presbyopia Tops One Billion People

Definitions:

• Significant sight loss in the UK is estimated using <6/18 as a measure of visual acuity
• Presbyopia - the condition where the eye exhibits a progressively diminished ability to focus on near objects with age

Notes

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:

• Arthritis Prevalence: A Nation in Pain (PDF)
• What is Essential Tremor? & About Tremor
• At what age do people get Parkinson's?

Notes

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 :

• Short term memory issues (which may result in a person forgetting the purpose of a website visit if they lose orientation on the site)
• Concentration and distraction issues (consider the volume of information on some pages, and the multiple animated advertisements that are sometimes present)

Reference:

• The prevalence of dementia (PDF)
• Prevalence of cognitive impairment (PDF)
• Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment without Dementia in the US

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:

• Maintain and extend social networks (email communication is often the starting point for those new to the Web)
• Access commercial services online, including product research, shopping and banking, that can become more difficult to access in person as result of mobility issues
• Access government information, services and civic participation
• Access news, sport, travel, health and other information
• Find employment and access employment-related Web applications during their later working life (retirement ages are being raised)
• Access training and learning opportunities - professionally or for leisure and hobbies
• Continue to live in their own homes, ensuring that they keep their independence for longer

Notes

 

See also

• Helping older people to access the Information Society (EC)
• Generations Online in 2009 (Pew Internet)

 

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:

• Poor design and coding of web sites
• Complex software, including browsers, media players, and assistive technologies, as well as authoring tools
• Little or no prior experience with computers, though this is changing rapidly (see note below)

Result: Web accessibility is an imperative in our information society!

Notes

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:

• Impairments associated with ageing
• Web site design requirements for older people
• Implications of particular impairments on Web use
• Older users' interaction with particular aspects of Web sites

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.

Notes

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:

• The work of W3C and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) was rarely mentioned
  • Most studies did not draw on the experience of previous work relating to people with disabilities using the Web
• There was a strong tendency in much of the literature to "reinvent the wheel" and not build on previous work
• 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 (though it should be noted that many of these studies were undertaken during the late 1990's or early 2000's before the numbers of older people online had grown significantly)
  • Inexperience impacts browser use as well as website use
  • Inexperience is likely to diminish as a factor as more older people use the Web
• Information overload was a problem that many observers reported
  • Many pages containing more information than some people could assimilate
  • In other situations people became distracted by information not relevant to the task they started
• Most of the articles considered the usability factors of a website
  • Very few considered the technical, or coding, aspects that may also assist
• Online forms were criticized heavily by some investigators
  • Some people suggested improvements such as grouping material and clear error reporting

Definition:

"older old" are considered as the group of people over 80 years (or sometimes over 85)

WAI-AGE made some other observations from the literature:

• Disability and impairment issues relating to older Web users were not well understood by industry and accessibility issues were not well understood by users themselves
• Very few articles considered the use of adaptive strategies (such as changing browser color and text size, or link tabbing) by older users
• Assistive technology has the potential to help some older users, yet none of the studies investigated this aspect of Web accessibility, nor looked at older people with disabilities (already be using assistive technologies) who might be experiencing additional age-related impairments
• Some recommendations reflected a lack of technical knowledge, for example
  • Some recommendations suggested that it was not good to have users double-click (not required on the Web)
  • Most of the literature ignored the possibility of adaptive strategies or the use of assistive technology
• Although hearing decline is common among older people, very few studies looked at the implications of this impairment or discussed the use of captions with video

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 ...

Notes

Web accessibility depends on several components working together:

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) documents explain how to make Web content, including text, images, and multimedia accessible to people with disabilities
• The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) documents explain how to make user agents (browsers and media players) accessible to people with disabilities, particularly to increase accessibility to Web content
• The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) documents define how authoring tools should help Web developers produce Web content that is accessible and conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The ATAG documents also explain how to make authoring tools accessible so that people with disabilities can create Web content

The following slides describe some of the key findings in relation to the WAI guidelines ...

Reference:

• Essential Components of Web Accessibility

Definition:

• Web "content" generally refers to the information in a Web page or Web application, including text, images, forms, sounds, etc.
• "user agents" include browsers and media players
• "authoring tools" include content management systems (CMS), HTML editors, wikis, blogs, forums, social networking applications, and any other application that allows you to add content to the Web

Notes

WAI-AGE found that many of the suggested requirements for making Web sites accessible to people with disabilities match the requirements of older users:

• Text
  • Font choice can affect ease of reading - studies have shown a slight preference for a sans serif font onscreen
  • Size - many older people require larger font size, so an ability to increase the text size is essential
  • Contrast - providing a suitably high contrast for text and other important information
  • Color - not relying on color as an indicator of information such as which words are links or which form elements are required, e.g. blue links that are not underlined are indistinguishable from black text for many older people
• Links
  • Clearly distinguished from the regular text and identifying the link destination or purpose
• Headings
  • Clearly standing out from the text, and clearly identifying the sections to follow
• Orientation and navigation
  • To help users know where they are in a website and where they can go

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.

Notes

Usability improvements that particularly help older Web users also help people with disabilities:

• Layout - consistent layout across the site (and consistent with other sites) to aid recognition and familiarity
• Text presentation - left justification (for left to right texts), increased line-spacing, use of proper case, and avoidance of italics, underlining, and other text decoration can make reading easier
• Forms - providing instruction, grouping like questions, making required fields obvious, giving examples, and providing clear error messages and assisting with error recovery
• Predictability and consistency - meeting users' expectations about how a website is presented and behaves, consistent menus and links, and clearly indicating links.

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:

• WAI Guidelines and Older Web Users: Findings from a Literature Review has details of WCAG 2.0 coverage.

Browsers play the key role in accessing the Web - they are the entry point.

Notes

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:

• Essential Components of Web Accessibility
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines

Notes

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:

• Essential Components of Web Accessibility
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines

Notes

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.

The web industry (both organizations with Web sites and applications, and web designers and developers) requires information:

• About the benefits of developing accessible Web sites to meet the needs of the ageing population who are increasingly online
• To understand the accessibility requirements of older users and the applicability of WAI guidelines to meet their needs.

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.

Notes

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:

• Increase awareness of the benefits of Web accessibility
• Provide guidance on taking advantage of Web accessibility through adaptive strategies and assistive technologies
• Help to identify and report Web accessibility problems
• Provide information on the findings of the WAI-AGE Project to assist the promotion of Web accessibility

WAI-AGE is developing materials to support user awareness and facilitate the promotion of Web accessibility to older users and older peoples' organizations.

Notes

Several existing WAI documents will benefit from having the needs of older users more explicitly addressed. These include:

• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization has been expanded to incorporate more benefits related to older users (NB. this document is completed and it's use is encouraged)
• The Before and After Demonstration (BAD) pages are being updated to incorporate more requirements of older users
• Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation is being expanded to incorporate older users, and to address the incorporation of accessibility throughout the development process

New resources are planned to build on the WAI-AGE findings and the benefits of WCAG 2.0. These include:

• Improving your Web Experience by Using Adaptive Strategies - will provide a general introduction to the use of adaptive strategies and assistive technologies with an emphasis on the needs of older users
• How to Report Inaccessible Web sites - will give advice on contacting organizations which have inaccessible Web sites to report accessibility problems
• Overlapping Relationship Between Web Accessibility and Usability - will explore and explain this overlap and the importance of usability to people with disabilities and older users

Notes

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.

Notes

WAI-AGE identified some gaps in our understanding of the requirements of older people using the Web including:

• Hearing loss and multimedia - how beneficial are captions and/or transcripts for older users who may also be experiencing minor memory loss and concentration difficulty
• Cognitive decline - impact of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), including short-term memory loss and distractibility, on website use and comprehension. Also, the impact of "change blindness" and noticing small page changes - how can within-page updates be made more obvious?
• Text decoration and fonts - what font weight and type is preferable? Are there any other text decoration preferences or decoration avoidances?
• Social networking - what improvements to these sites might be required to better accommodate older users?
• Awareness and use of assistive technology by older people, especially the impact of more intuitive interfaces on adoption

Notes

People can actively contribute by:

• Monitoring WAI-AGE (new outputs will be announced on the WAI-AGE project page - www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE)
  • Consider joining the WAI-AGE mailing list - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wai-age/
• Commenting on deliverables while they are being developed
• Participating in the WAI-AGE Task Force or one of the WAI Working Groups
• Contributing relevant research findings to fill in some of the gaps in our understanding

See Participating in WAI for WAI participation details.

Notes

Notes

Notes

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:

• To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web

Within the W3C, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary activities:

• Ensuring that core technologies of the Web support accessibility
• Developing guidelines for Web content, user agents, and authoring tools
• Facilitating development of evaluation and repair tools for accessibility
• Conducting education and outreach
• Coordinating with research and development that can affect future accessibility of the Web.

Notes

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]).

UK Office of National Statistics:

UK National Population Projections

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

Notes

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

Notes

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.

Source:

Reuters, undated - Japan's Aging Population

Reuters, 17 Sept 2007 - FACTBOX-The outlook for Japan's ageing population

UN - World Population Prospects: the 2006 Revision

Notes

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

Notes

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