Preventing Ageism in Design: Digital Accessibility for Older Adults

December 12, 2024Accessibility Strategy

As technology continues to shape our world, it’s more important than ever to ensure that older adults are not excluded from digital spaces. Ageism in design — whether intentional or not — can create significant barriers for those of us who are older, limiting our ability to engage with the digital world.

This is particularly concerning as data shows more older adults have become tech-savvy, with 75% of people over the age of 65 now using the internet and 61% owning a smartphone. It’s time to address the unique needs of this demographic to foster a more inclusive, accessible digital environment for all.

The Growing Need for Digital Accessibility

With demographic trends toward an aging population in many countries around the world, the result is an increased population that benefits from digital accessibility. Disability and chronic illness increase with age. On top of that, the aging process can also lead to changes in vision, hearing, mobility, and cognitive capabilities.

The rate of change, and combination of changes, is highly individual but can create barriers to accessing online content. It’s also worth noting that people may not be aware of their own changing accessibility needs as they age — and may not self-identify as disabled or having accessibility needs.

Older adults are often mistakenly assumed to be less engaged with digital technology, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. After all, the World Wide Web was invented in 1989, 35 years before this article was written.

That’s a lot of time for generations to become familiar with and depend on the Web as a critical tool for everyday life, whether at work or home. So, it’s not surprising that many older adults use online platforms for everyday tasks like shopping, managing healthcare, and socializing with friends and family.

Digital accessibility is more than simply adhering to legal requirements — it’s about making the digital world welcoming to everyone regardless of disability or age. By creating digital environments that are easy to use, organizations can empower seniors to engage fully with the services and products they need.

What Is Ageism in Design?

Ageism in design refers to the assumptions and biases embedded in digital environments that exclude or disadvantage older adults. While these biases may be implicit rather than explicit, they can lead to barriers to usability, ranging from overly complex navigation systems to poor contrast ratios that make text hard to read for seniors with vision impairments. Unfortunately, these design flaws are often overlooked, leading to a lack of inclusivity and frustration for older users.

To prevent ageism in digital design, adopting an inclusive design mindset is essential. This means avoiding making decisions based on assumptions of inaccurate stereotypes and instead considering the needs of older adults throughout the design process. Older adults may have different preferences, needs, and challenges when interacting with digital tools, so it’s crucial to address these differences thoughtfully and proactively.

How to Address Ageism in Digital Accessibility

To create inclusive digital environments for older adults, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a robust framework for ensuring digital content is accessible to people with accessibility needs, including age-related impairments. The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative provides helpful additional information on meeting the needs of aging web users.

Here are a few specific WCAG success criteria that help address the needs of older adults:

  • 1.2.2 and 1.2.4: Closed captions for multimedia content. To address age-related changes in hearing capability, accurate and well-formatted captions help ensure users don’t miss out on information presented in audio.
  • 1.4.3: Contrast ratios. Age-related vision decline can make it more difficult to read content presented in low-contrast color schemes. Ensuring sufficient contrast between content and background colors helps make content more readable for older adults with vision impairments.
  • 1.4.4: Text resizing. Allowing text to be resized up to 200% without loss of content or functionality helps people with vision impairments read content more easily.
  • 2.2.1 and 2.2.2: Adjustable timing for content. Aside from any visual issues that affect reading, age-related changes in cognitive ability mean some older adults may take longer to read or absorb information. This becomes a particular problem if there is a time limit after which content changes or is no longer available. So, a means to pause or extend time-limited content helps ensure users have sufficient time to read content and respond accordingly.
  • 2.5.5: Larger clickable areas. Controls with small click targets can be harder to activate for older adults, resulting in reduced efficiency and an increased chance of making errors. For example, some older adults may experience reduced manual dexterity due to conditions like arthritis or Parkinson’s disease. This can be exacerbated by reduced vision, making it harder to distinguish the boundaries of a control. Making controls like buttons and form input fields large enough to be easy to activate helps reduce errors and improve usability.

The Role of WCAG in Designing with Older Adults in Mind

WCAG serves as a global standard for digital accessibility. By focusing on a minimum of WCAG AA conformance, businesses can ensure they meet the accessibility needs of older adults and disabled people. These guidelines offer practical solutions that make websites more accessible.

However, designing digital resources to conform to WCAG isn’t enough to truly prevent ageism in design. Businesses must go beyond meeting the minimum requirements to integrate accessibility into the entire user experience design and development process, considering the digital resource’s intended purpose and audience.

5 Digital Design Tips for Older Adult Accessibility

Here are practical design tips to help create inclusive, usable digital resources for older adults:

1. Simplify Navigation

Focus on simplifying navigation and enhancing usability. Use clear, intuitive menus with visible labels and look for ways to limit the effort required to complete key tasks. Including a search bar with auto-suggest functionality can also make finding information easier.

2. Use Readable Fonts and Layouts

Readable fonts and layouts are essential! Opt for large, legible font sizes (at least 16px) with sufficient line spacing, and avoid decorative fonts in favor of readable typefaces. Organize content using headings and subheadings for easy scanning, ensuring a logical flow.

3. Support User Customization

Design to support in-built operating system and browser features that are provided to improve accessibility. These include features for adjusting display, like increasing text size and spacing, applying high contrast settings or dark mode, and reducing animation or movement.

Following best practices in using semantic markup for content, minimizing the use of images of text, and using stylesheets for styling helps ensure that older adults who prefer to adjust display using native accessibility settings can do so successfully.

4. Provide Accessible Media

Make sure that video has accurate, readable captions and that where possible, background noise is minimized in audio or video. Follow standard conventions when providing media player controls so users can receive and control media according to their needs. Avoid auto-playing video and audio wherever possible.

5. Include Older Adults in User Research

Whenever you conduct user research activities, from exploratory research that informs product requirements to usability testing of prototypes and functional code, look for opportunities to include older adults. This helps ensure the needs of older adults influences design decisions and helps confirm that what you built is usable by older adults.

Explore more inclusive design best practices in the second part of the comprehensive blog series, Best Practices for Inclusive Design.

Creating an inclusive digital experience requires a commitment to designing with empathy and understanding. By taking these factors into account, your organization can work towards preventing ageism from affecting design decisions and can help older adults effectively use your digital resources.

Building an Inclusive Future for All Ages

As we age and continue to engage with the digital world, it’s essential that digital resources do not create barriers to ongoing use. A focus on digital accessibility benefits older adults and can help enhance the user experience for everyone.

For a more detailed look at how your organization can create accessible digital experiences, be sure to check out our on-demand webinar, Digital Accessibility for Older Adults. We cover everything from the basics to actionable strategies for improving your digital content’s accessibility.

We’ve also included the comprehensive list of resources mentioned at the end of the webinar for easy access:

Additional Resources

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About Melissa Morse

Melissa Morse is a passionate advocate for digital accessibility and an accomplished content creator at TPGi. With expertise spanning accessibility, HR compliance, and recruiting, Melissa brings a unique perspective to her work — bridging the gap between inclusive digital experiences and equitable workplace practices.

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