Welcome to Wiser Usability

Guidelines for designing “senior-friendly” websites have been published by AARP, the National Institute on Aging, the World Wide Web Consortium, among others. However, very few web developers follow such guidelines, even when older adults are their intended audience. As we age, we are likely to experience:

• lower contrast sensitivity and color perception, making links harder to identify.
• reduced dexterity and fine motor control, making small targets such as buttons and links harder to select.
• increased tendency to be visually distracted, making navigation more difficult.
• greater difficulty concentrating, making navigation and learning more difficult.

In the future, even non-governmental institutions will need to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act: websites must be accessible to users with certain limitations, including those associated with aging.

To make sure that you’re optimizing the web experience for your audience, let Wiser Usability evaluate your website.

Is it easily usable by anyone over, say, 40?

Common age-related changes affect our vision, hearing, fine motor control, and cognition.  Visual changes, for example, start at about age 40;  by age 50, most of us experience them.

Does the design of your website take this into account?  With the shifting age demographic and the massive increase in the number of internet users over 40, you don’t want to ignore this audience.

Formal guidelines for website accessibility exist, but in practice, few website designers use them.

Make sure you’re giving your intended audience the best user experience possible.  Let Wiser Usability show you how.

Access Exchange International (AEI)

“AEI faces daunting challenges in our work to promote public transportation in low-income countries for persons with different types of sensory, cognitive, and mobility disabilities.  On top of this, we found that our website was not useful for some of the very persons who mattered most among the different stakeholders we serve.

As one of Wiser Usability’s first clients, I am more than satisfied with the way our whole website now looks cleaner and more consistent — advantages that came along with the work you did to upgrade accessibility for those who visit our site.

Thanks to Wiser Usability, not only is our website more accessible, but you have presented options to us for further improvements.  During the past twenty years I have been hard put to keep up with features to make our site more attractive and useable.  It is a relief for an small agency such as AEI to be able to take a big technical leap.

AEI is a small non-profit agency, and it is good to find a technically savvy organization like WiserUsability to stand with us.”

– Tom Rickert, Executive Director, Access Exchange International, globalride-sf.org