W3C logoWeb Accessibility Initiative (WAI) logo

WAI: Strategies, guidelines, and resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities

Navigation: W3C Home > WAI Home > WAI-AGE Project > Needs for Older Users > Additional requirements suggested

Additional requirements suggested by ageing recommendations
[Editor's DRAFT - 23 July 2008]

Page Contents

 Introduction

The requirements listed in the table below are additional to the requirements provided by the various authors that match the WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints, and are considered by the respective authors to be part of good practice for ‘senior friendly’ Web sites.

These seven sets of recommendations or checklists have been analysed as they provided broad, and often extensive, recommendations for making Web sites ‘senior friendly’. As discussed in the literature review, they are either based on extensive research, considerable user observation, or both. Many other investigations have been reported in the literature review, however most of them either reported difficulties experienced by older users, or investigated and made recommendations for specific narrow aspects of web design/development issues, or addressed specific impairments experienced by older users.

Key to symbol used in the tables

Key to symbol use in the table:

Notes reflect qualifications about the author’s recommendation.

Table of additional recommendations

Recommendation:

Holt 2000

Age Light 2001

NIH / NLM 2002

Coyne & Nielsen 2002

AARP 2004

Webcredible 2005

Zaphiris & Kurniawan 2006

Minimum text size recommendation

14 pt

12 to 14 pt
(and relative units to allow scaling)

12 to 14 pt

12 pt minimum

Headings larger than text

12 pt minimum

12 to 14 pt

Text size adjustment link

-

-

-

Yes

Yes

-

-

Typeface recommendation

Sans serif
(avoid fancy fonts)

Sans serif
(no drop-shadows or other embellishments)

Sans serif

-

San serif
(body text)

-

Sans serif

Type weight

Bold for emphasis only

Avoid bold

Use medium or bold weight

-

-

-

-

Avoid all capitals

-

Yes

Yes
(use in headlines only)

-

-

-

Yes

Avoid Underlining

Yes

Yes
(use for links only)

Yes
(use for links only)

-

-

-

-

Justification recommendation
(for left to right scripts)

Not centred
Not full

Left justified

Left justified

-

-

-

Left justified

Increased spacing

Yes
(between lines & letters)

Yes
(between lines)

Yes
(double space body text)

-

-

-

Yes
(between lines)

White space

 Yes

Yes
(include page margins)

-

-

-

-

-

Colour use

Avoid blue & green text – can be confused with links

Bright and bold are safe – avoid fluorescents;
Beware colour blind issues;
Dark on light is better than light on dark

Avoid blue & green in close proximity

-

-

-

Use conservatively
Avoid blue and green;
Avoid coloured text on coloured background

Avoid patterned backgrounds

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

-

-

-

Use short pages

Yes

Yes

-

-

-

-

Yes
(to avoid scrolling)

Avoid pull-down & fly‑out Menus

Yes

-

Yes
(use pull-down menus sparingly)

Beware

-

-

Yes
(particularly pull-down menus)

Pop-ups & new windows

-

Beware
(disables back button)

-

All text should fit

Must be large enough to hold text without scrolling

-

Avoid

Provide Help & FAQs

Yes

-

-

Yes
(including for Search function)

-

-

Yes

Form & other error messages

Clear

-

-

Clear

-

-

Easy to follow

Link size

Larger size

Large
(with clickable margin)

Link text and its icon to increase target size

12pt+ & margin & graphic if adjacent

-

-

Larger targets

Link presentation /  identification

Blue

Underlined;
Change colour after visit

-

Blue. Bold, underlined;
Change colour after visit;
Include icons in link if present

Standard & consistent treatment;
Different appearance for hover and visited states

Differentiate from text colour (blue, bold, underlined);
Change colour after visiting

Differentiate from text;
Use lists to enhance skimming links

Link utilisation

Clearly separate links

-

-

-

Add a clickable margin;
Add space between adjacent links to reduce chance of clicking the wrong one

-

-

Navigation improvements

-

-

Previous/next page links

-

-

-

Previous/next page

Don’t disable the “Back” button

-

Yes

-

-

Yes

-

 

Site architecture

Shallow hierarchy

-

-

-

Broad & shallow site hierarchy

-

Shallow

Provide breadcrumbs

-

-

-

-

-

-

To show location within site

Branding on all pages

Yes
(and home page link)

(date on pages to show currency)

-

Yes
(and home page link)

-

-

-

Search function

-

-

-

Result visible without scrolling

-

Critical and must be whole site

-

“About Us”

 

Background and contact details

Provide contact details

-

-

-

-

Consider page download speed

Yes

Yes

Especially audio/video

Homepage should load quickly

 

-

-

Downloads

-

-

-

-

-

Aversion to downloads

-

Spelling accommodation

-

-

-

Search tolerance
(Including “-” etc in phone numbers or credit card number)
Register URL variations

-

-

Accommodate spelling errors in search

Clean pages

-

-

-

-

Yes
(avoid clutter)

-

Yes
(avoid irrelevant information;
Simple/clear layout)

Mouse use

-

-

Single clicks

-

-

-

No double clicks

Writing style

-

-

Active voice, positive statements

-

Active voice;
Short sentences & paragraphs

-

Short lines for instructional material

User testing

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

-

-

-