IID.2006 - Project 4
Research Synthesis Design Solution
 
something here
inTune
 
research

something here

04 Usability Review

Beacuse of our particular target audience, we thought it would be prudent to research general usability issues and guidelines specifically related to seniors. We hoped that by gaining a better sense of the shortcomings that typically come with aging, we could design a music player that would better accomodate the needs of seniors who are physically different than the younger aged consumer.

In our research we were particularly interested in the fact that the majority of seniors suffer from "presbyopia" to some degree. This condition impairs a person's eyesight in a way in that makes focusing on nearby objects much harder. The implications for designs are very clear: we should ideally design a player in which seniors read a minimum amount, if any, of text on a product.

As a result of this impaired eyesight, other usability issues also tend to crop up as well. These include:

  • Blues look darker
  • Blue and green colors are hard to distinguish
     
  • Dimmer colors are harder to visualize
  • Need high contrast for greatest readability

Armed with the details of this vision impairment that affects the majority of seniors, we felt more prepared to apply these design guidelines to our design prototype.

 
   
  IID 2006 . Human-Computer Interaction Institute . Carnegie Mellon University