Janice (Ginny) Redish
Expert in plain language, writing for the web, and user experience

Older Adults

A 2012 book chapter

Chisnell, D. and Redish, J. C., 2012, Modelling Older Adults for Website Design, in E. Loos, L. Haddon, and E. Mante-Meijer (Eds.), Generational Use of New Media, Routledge / Ashgate, 107-128. (Available for purchase.)

Guidelines for creating websites for older adults

Chisnell, D. and Redish, J., 2019, Making Your Website Senior Friendly. 
(Adapted from a 2008 deliverable for the U.S. National Institute on Aging.)

Reports of studies funded by AARP

AARP Audience-Centered Heuristics: Older Adults.(pdf, 106 Kb)
Twenty heuristics, each with several questions, from the following two studies.

Chisnell, D. and Redish, J. C., 2005, Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: Expert Review of Usability for Older Adults at 50 Web Sites. (pdf, 1.8 Mb)

Chisnell, D. and Redish, J. C., 2004, Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: A Review of Recent Research. (pdf, 397 Kb)

Other articles originally on the AARP site, olderwiserwired

Chisnell, D., Lee, A., and Redish, J. C., 2004, Recruiting and Working with Older Participants in Usability Studies (pdf, 156 Kb)

Tullis, T., 2003, Eight Lesson Learned and Design Implications.(pdf, 33 Kb)

For more on the study that led to these lessons learned, see the link below to Chadwick-Dias, et al., 2003.

Other useful resources on older adults

Note: The entire issue 8.1, March 2009, of the magazine, User Experience, is on Older Adults. Here are direct links to 4 of the articles in that issue:

Arch, A., Abou-Zahra, S., and Henry, S. L., 2009, Older Users Online:  WAI Guidelines Address the Web Experiences of Older UsersUser Experience, 8 (1).

Gazzaley, A., 2009, The Aging BrainUser Experience, 8 (1).

Loring, B., Leclerc, K., and Engdahl, K., 2009, Conducting Field Studies with Older Adults Lessons for Recruiting and Testing Older Users. User Experience Magazine, 8 (1)

Siple, P., 2009, Design for the Aging Brain (Commentary on Dr. Gazzaley’s The Aging Brain). User Experience, 8 (1)

Quesenbery, W., 2006, More Alike Than We ThinkUXMatters.

Keates, S. and Trewin, S., 2005, Effect of Age and Parkinson’s Disease on Cursor Positioning Using a MouseProceedings of Assets ’05

Chadwick-Dias, A., Tedesco, D., and Tullis, T., 2004, Older Adults and Web Usability:  Is Web Experience the Same as Web Expertise? Proceedings of CHI 2004

Chadwick-Dias, A., McNulty, M., and Tullis, T., 2003, Web Usability and Age:  How Design Changes Can Improve Performance, Proceedings of CUU ’03

Gregor, P., Newell, A. F., Zajicek, M., 2002, Designing for Dynamic Diversity – Interfaces tor older peopleProceedings of Assets 2002