A study of web usability for older adults seeking online health resources

  • Authors:
  • Shirley Ann Becker

  • Affiliations:
  • Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The Web offers older adult users immediate access to health resources that might not otherwise be available. Older adult users, however, may encounter Web barriers associated with normal aging and lower education. The National Institute on Aging Web guidelines were used to assess the usability of 125 Web sites offering health resources. Performance, translation, and reading complexity were also assessed. Results showed that many of the sampled sites were not senior-friendly. Only 12% of the sites offered a Spanish version, many containing nontranslated text. Approximately a third of sampled sites required a college education to comprehend extracted health information.