Jeff Johnson: "Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population" | Talks at Google

Jeff Johnson:

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Hi, everyone welcome, and, thank you so much for for joining us today. My. Name is Laura I work on accessibility here, at Google it's. Great to be, here today and you. Know accessibility, is something that's really really critical and core to our mission here, at Google you. Know to organize the world information make it universally, accessible and useful and, 15. Percent of the global population has. Some form of a disability and. We, need to be thinking about you know how people are actually interacting, with our interfaces and with our devices kind, of stripping away those assumptions of how we might think that they're interacting and really, building inclusive products. When. We are thinking about the principles, of accessible design it's, often helpful to kind of break down the group's, into personas, of users and think about the different, interaction, models that people might be using so. We can break down into a few different groups for example might, be thinking about blind, or low vision users, deaf. Or hard-of-hearing users, people, with motor dexterity challenges. And people, who are considered, you know neurologically. Diverse or who, have a range of intellectual, disabilities, but. There's a huge population, of people that absolutely, needs to be factored into this discussion and that's, the aging population which, has been growing and growing since, life expectancies, have thankfully been increasing, over the years and the. World Health Organization, estimates that by 2050. Over. 2 billion people will, be over the age of 60, it's. A huge population and as. We all age we, may experience, disabilities. In different ways we, may experience just, slight deterioration of, certain, senses, of a. Vision of hearing of dexterity, for example. Many. Other sorts of things so as technologists. It's really, really important, for us to factor in the needs of this very, important, and very large population. So we're super excited about today. Jeff. Johnson is a professor, of computer science at the University of San Francisco there. He teaches courses that, introduce students to computer science and also. Special topics, in human-computer interaction. Beyond. Academia Jeff, has worked as a UI designer and implementer, an engineering. Manager used. Elte tester and a researcher, at companies, like chrome EMCO Xerox uswest, hewlett-packard. Labs and Sun Microsystems. Building. On a PhD in psychology jeff, has spent decades, contributing. To our understanding of, human-computer, interaction. He's. Addressed both technical, and social issues including, working as chair of computer. Professionals. For Social Responsibility in, the late 80s and early 90s. In. 2016. Professor. Johnson was recognized with a lifetime, achievement, in practice, award from Sakai, the, ACM, special, interest group on computer.

Human Interaction. At. The award ceremony Stanford. Professor, Terry Winograd cited, the influence, of Professor Johnson's books on interface, design, many. Of these books stem, from the idea that. You learn more from things that don't work than, from things that do. Today. Professor, Johnson, will be sharing lessons, that. He's learned from things that don't work because our, bodies change with, age. In. Designing, user interfaces, for an aging population, Jeff. And his collaborator, Kate Finn have, built a comprehensive. Resource resource. For technology, developers, seeking. To produce products, that can be easily and, successfully, used by. Older adults, please. Join me now in welcoming Jeff, and Kate to Google today. Thank. You it is my microphone. I want. To thank Tim and Laura for giving the first half of my talk. So. Yes, so this talk is going to be based on a book. That Kate, Finn who's sitting back there and I wrote. The. Book is over there and apparently Tim is going to be giving away copies of it later. And. Then there's some other books I wrote sitting, in there for you to look at. Ok. So, the. Population. Of the world is aging on the average, people. Live longer birth rates are low and, so. Humanity, on the average, is growing older so, let's, look at some numbers so that we can see how. Much it's. Changing, these. Are the top 10 countries, in the, world that. Have populations. Of people over 50, and by. The way in our book we use, 50. As in, the, line. For, indicating, older. Adults the reason that we picked that number is that most of the research that we read in. Preparation. Of the book uses. That number so. That age is an arbitrary, age some researchers. Talk about 60, some use 65, but. The bulk of them use 50, and so we decided to use. That number. Okay. So if we look at these top 10 countries. China. Has nearly, 400. Million people over the age of 50. India. Has. About. 230. Million, the. U.s. is third Japan. Is fourth and coming up fast. It's. It's got the most rapidly, growing. Popper. Centage of people over over. 50. We, can also look at the information, this way. If. You if, you look at in. 2015. Basically. Almost. Twenty, percent of people. In the less developed areas of the world were, over. Fifty now, in, the less developed world or what we call the developing, world population. Rates, population. Growth rates tend, to be birth, rates tend to be higher and, therefore. There's a larger, percentage of younger adults and so. The. Average, age of the population is, tends. To be lower than in. The developed world. So. In the developed world we can see that in. 2015. There was nearly 40%, of the population over. Over. 50 and then. As you, can see the numbers are expected to grow over. The next several. Decades. Yet. Another way to look at what's, going on is you. Know people say well old. People don't use. Technology. They don't they don't go online but that's. Not really true as we can see from this chart.

There. Are, this. Is broken out by age groups and so as, you can see the the. 18. To 29 year olds, have. Pretty much been online and are still there that way, Oh, nearly. 100 percent. The. Next age group is slightly less, and. Then. When we get to 50 year olds, 264. It's. Slightly. Less. But it's still growing and then, the fastest-growing, demographic. On, online, is. People. Over 65. Now. This. Is a little bit this graph is a little bit problematic because, although, it sort of seems, to show these. These growth, rates. It's. Problematic. Because people, who are in one, age group age, into, another. Age group and therefore. Of, course this, num this lower line is going to get go up as the people, who are on this line, become, over. 65, right, so. So. This, chart, has been shown by Pew Internet. To. Show that. People. Are, increasingly going online but I. Have. Some questions about this chart so I prefer to, look at it more, like this, where. We. Take people by birth generation. What. You don't you don't move out of your birth generation, you, stay in it. So. We have Millennials, age who. People who were in it - how, 2016. 18. To 34, then. We have Gen X younger. Boomers etc, and. We, can look at the percentages, of them that are have. Adopted, technology. What. We call digital technology, now. When we say digit when we say technology in this talk, when I say it I, essentially. Mean digital, technology, because of course you. Know a horse and a buggy is technology it's, just old. Older, technology, so the. Question is where. Where. Are people. What. Kind of technology, are people using so for the purpose of this talk I'm referring. To digital, technology, we. Can also break it out by device. So. We. Can see that. For. Tablets. There's. Not a lot of variability, and who's. Using, tablets, by, age group. There's. Some but not a whole lot, there's, not that much with, cell phones of all, types. Nearly. A hundred percent of people 18. To 29 or. Actually it, is the, Pew puts it at a hundred percent are, using and, again, we're talking about the developed, world are using. Digital. Technology. Or cell, phones. And, it doesn't vary that much by age the, oldest age group 65, and over is at, 80 percent but, when we look at smartphones there is. More. Of an age disparity. But. Again, those. Bars are all going, up and, especially. The the. Smartphone. For. A 65, plus that's going up. Two. Years ago it was at 30% now it's at 42. Okay. So. It's. Going up. Laptops. And desktops, and tablets, actually. Have been seen to slip. In the general population over, the last couple of years according to pew pew. Research, they've. Started to drop, a little bit.

Okay. So now. The interesting thing about the the older. Than 50 population. Is that technology. Digital technology, can actually help them. Quite. A bit. And. Here. Are some quotes that are were, gleaned. From online sources, of. People writing comments to in response, to articles, about technology. And older adults, and. So here's here's. An, example of a quote, a. Mac. Laptop opened, the world to me right here from my kitchen table. And. It. Helped me because of my, physical. Disability. My mobility, is limited so. This. One for, the benefit of people who may. Not be able to see this very well says. I can keep in touch with people all over the world. This, one I feel so connected and so. Much of the world art music nature comedy, and humanity, and this. One says, technologies helped me moved 19, times in the past nine years taking, everything with me I can't. Imagine to going back to life without a computer so. These. Are the kinds of things that technology can, do for people who whose. Mobility. Is a little bit limited. Or. Who. Are socially. Isolated. On. The, other hand if we don't design the technology well, then. We'll also get. Comments. Like these which. Are also gleaned, from online, sources okay. You. Know how can I make the font bigger I can't see it I wish they'd stop changing, things for no good reason, all the. Technology's, just so confusing to me who thought thin blurry letters was a good idea I hear. That one a lot so. Much to remember, what. Happened to the menus, I don't know where to get help is, this the, website or an app actually. That's. I don't think that's so age dependent, a lot of my students at USF don't know the difference between a website, and an app. Where. Did my cursor go those. Kind of things so. Poorly. Designed. Technology. Can, lead to these. Kinds of, problems for, especially. For older adults now these. Problems, are not restricted. To older, adults but. They. Impact. Older adults they tend to impact older adults more, than, the general population, so. You. Know illegible, text pat bad passwords, hard to remember passwords. CAPTCHAs. Target. Small targets. And, the, difficulty of getting tech support. Those. Those are all problems that lots. Of people encounter, but, older, adults encounter, them more. Often so let. Me just show you an example of, someone who was in in. A usability test that Kate and I produc. Conducted. A few years ago, we. Were looking at, older, adults using travel. Websites, that were aimed at older adults so. You may not know but there's a whole in, industry. There's. A whole segment of the travel industry that's aimed at people who are essentially. Retired because. They have money in time so. There are various, companies, and. So we tried a bunch. Of those websites, with older adults some. Of whom are frequent. Travelers so these are not people who are, homebound. People. And. So you get close you get situations. Like this in the test, so. So. At this point if you.

Were You. Know really looking for a trip, what. Would you do next if we weren't here. I. Would. Say you know if. I can't get, to what I want, and, reasonable. Tries then. This is not this, is I don't wanna go, to, this company. So. They, just lost a customer. So. There's, a researcher. In. Britain named Alan F Newell, it was different from the Alan Newell that many of us know in in the United States but this is Alan F Newell who, research has been researching, designing. For older adults for many years and his. Famous. One of his famous quotes is designed, for older adults, and you designed for almost. Everyone else. There, are many populations. That have similar usability. Issues, to older adults, people. With low vision physical. Impairments, low literacy. Little. Or obsolete, technical, experience second, language learners and cognitive. Impairments. You. Know as we get older. People. Often. Get. These kind of disabilities. Occurring. And. You. Know it varies tremendously as, we as you know right there are some, people who at age 95, are running marathons, and writing books and there. Are other people who at. Age 60 or are you know not. Capable. Of those kinds of things so. And. The. Other point. You can make is that, everyone. Is impaired at least, some, of the time, even. Young people can have trouble in some situations, we often, use the word situationally. Disabled. So. You. Could have somebody who was trying to use their cell phone on a bus and the buses happens. To be driving down I don't, know if you've been to San Francisco, recently but many streets, in San Francisco are currently being torn up as PG&E. Tries. To update 50. Year old gas, lines and so. All these streets are torn up and so the buses and taxis, and uber cars and everything are. Sing-along like this and, people. Are trying to use their cellphones and having trouble texting. And. Then of course you have very. Common situations, like this one like someone trying to use a, cell. Phone while. Riding horse but. The point is that the world shakes and therefore. You. Suddenly, have tremors, do, you have Chan tremors. So, it's not just for old people that we're designing this. With. They, were trying, to make the technology, accessible, in. Fact we can look at it as trying. To build. The, digital. Equivalent of, curb cuts because. You. Know if you're familiar with curb cuts they were mandated. By city. Ordinances. That and. Maybe state ordinances. That tried, to make sure that everyone, the, people in wheelchairs, could. Could, use sidewalks, but. The percentage. Of people who use. Wheelchairs over, curb cuts is actually, very low compared, to people. On skateboards. People, pulling roller bags people, pulling pushing, shopping, carts people. Pushing, all, sorts of, wheeled. Devices. So. Curb cuts actually help a large, segment of the population even. Though they, were put in place specifically. For people in wheelchairs. That's. What we're looking for another. Example of that kind of technology. Is. Awake. So, kitchen. Appliances, how many of you are familiar with oxo, kitchen appliances, anyone so, the story is that. This. Guy who was kind of an inventor. You, know noticed that his wife who had arthritis, and some in her hands was, having difficulty, slicing. The, peeling. The potatoes. And. Rather. Than helping her peel the potatoes. He. He'd. Have invented, a special.

Potato. Peeler for her which. His. Friends started saying hey that's really cool I want one I want one I want one I want one more and so, he launched, this company and started making these things. And now they're famous for making ergonomically. Designed. Kitchen. Appliances. So. That's what we're looking for in the digital world they see things, that can help. Make. Digital technology, more accessible to older adults and everyone. Else at the same time. Well. You. Know we've. Been doing user. Interface design for a long time there's, a big user, interface this design, group here at Google you, know they went to some of the same universities. And took some of the same courses that I did. You. Know we should all know how to do this by now right. The. Problem is that. We don't and. Some. Of the reasons are. Given. Here and this is in this. List. We. Tend to design, for people like ourselves. Technology. Producers, tend to be somewhat, young and, have. Little experience, with older adults. And. When. You if you've just provide them with, data that's, not good enough it doesn't make it enough of an impression. Older. Adults are often not included in usability. Tests. Or user research, for logistical, reasons. And. You. Know some people just don't think aging, is a sexy, topic so it, gets it it. Often gets ignored. There's. Also an argument out there that, Kate. And I have heard and you probably heard too which. Is that well. You. Know the. Old people today who. Don't know how to use technology they're, gonna die, and, so. Let's, not worry about that because. Everyone. Who's grown up with technology is. Going. To grow up and, they're. Going to know how to use it and therefore, we don't need to design especially, for those old. People. And. So. The terminology. That's been used as we. Refer to digital, natives, versus, digital and. So. Technically. I'm a digital immigrant, because when I was born digital. Technology, didn't really much exist. Or. At least it wasn't used, by the public and. So. I didn't grow up with it until I was you. Know in college. And. Especially. True for my parents my, parents were not did. Not grow up with it so we're, digital, immigrants, and then the people who grew up with, the technology.

All, Their lives essentially, are, called the digital natives and so the, idea of this argument is just wait. Until the digital natives take over and everything will be fine we. Won't have to design especially. For those older adults that. Argument doesn't hold water and I'll, show you why. We're, familiar mostly. With these. Generations. So, there's. The GI Generation, Silent. Generation baby, boomers etc, and this. Is the, blue bars show, the. Ages. In which, they were born, so those, generations, are defined, by. The. Range, of age of years, in which they, were born and so we can see when. The GI generation, was born in this chart we can see when the Silent. Generation which, is my parents were. Born baby. Boomers, which is the generation I'm in. Generation. X Millennials, and the generation. Z homeland, or those are the kids who are being born now okay. And, so. That Millennials, are my students, my college students right now. But. What's. Important, is not, the. Age at, which these, people were born these generations, were born what's, important is the age at which, what. Was going on in the world when, they were between ten and twenty five because. Those are known as the formative, years where, they, become, used. To whatever technology is existed at the time, so. We look at that and, we. Can see that these are the bands of age which each of those generations. Are. Or. The sorry. These are these are the spans of years at which each of these generations, is. Between. Ten and twenty five so. We look at those and then we take that and project. We're. Going to project that onto this graph which is a different. Graph this one shows the, range, of years in which certain types of Technology. Were. Dominant, so we call this technology. Generations. So. We can see that 1902. The. Late 30s, was the, the mechanical. Era equipment. Was mechanical. And. From. The late 30s, to 1960. Was electromechanical. Era. I remember, as a child Hoover. Vacuum cleaners, and things like that things that were partly. Electrical, and partly mechanical, but, I grew up mainly in the analog, electronic. Age and then. There was the personal computer and basic Internet age, the, web search, an e-commerce. Age which hasn't ended yet digital. Music social and mobiles which haven't ended yet so. The, question is what, how, do the how. Do. The human. Generations. Formative. Years. Compared. To these time. Bands and what. We see is that, each. Of the, human. Generations. Kind, of span a couple, of different, technology. Eras so. My. Parents, were, in the Silent, Generation. Grew. Up partly, an electromechanical. And. Partly in the analog electronic, age. You. Know those stereos, that, we that us, old people have in our living, rooms now, it's. Electron analog, electronic, and. Then. Personal. Computer, Gen, X started. Out with the personal computer and basic Internet age but. Has. Still. Was. Still, in their formative years when each web search and e-commerce started. And a little bit when digital music started, and then. Then we have the Millennials, who. Grew up mostly in in, this, the area of these these. Technology social and mobile digital, music and Gen. Z of course who are being. Born now they're going to grow up with all of this this, stuff. Okay. So so, let's look exactly at what some of that means, in. The. Analog, electronic. World that. Let's say I grew up with. There. Is no notion of, navigating. Through a user interface, that. Is to say a user, interface is all there on the, control panel, okay. And so there's, the television. There's the controls and maybe there are some controls on the back that I hardly ever use and, there's. A phone and there's, all the controls for it there's the zenith radio and all the controls for it there's my auto dashboard, and there's all the controls for it I do not have to navigate, through. The user interface. Okay. So. Say. You grew up with that notion. Of the world and then, suddenly you're, popped into a world in which, there. Are multiple, applications. On the screen and you have to figure out which one you're in and. Go. From one page to the next page, and. Then. You look at your your phone and now, one, moment it looks like this and the next moment it looks, like that okay, so. You've, you have to actually get from one place to another in the user interface. That's. A foreign concept you, did not grow up with that you. Had to learn that after you, were 25. And. That's not necessarily easy and you. Know here's here's a Tesla. Instrument. Panel one. Minute and that's, the same instrument, panel the, next minute so. You. Are. You're. Having to learn a whole new paragraph. Paradigm. For interacting, with technology, so that's why those technology. Generations, and the, position of your generation. While, you were doing your formative, years why, that matters. Okay. So so, there's all that though. So that's a whole. Packet. Of reasons why, the. Age-friendly design, problem, will not disappear, but, there's yet, another reason.

Which. Is that most, of us experience age-related. Changes and, those, are not going to go away either. Okay. So those. Age-related. Changes are, going to happen to, your children and their, children as, well, as to, us, and, those. Changes occur in. Vision. Motor control, speech and hearing cognition. Attention. Learning man marry and knowledge, and attitude, and I, would, have to say the bulk of the book talks. About these. Changes, there's. A chapter devoted to each one of those bullets. What. Are the changes and then what do you do to design so. That you don't those, changes are not a barrier. Now. Before. I go into those changes, because, this, talk can be depressing, up to this point, when. You look at that and you go oh my gosh what do I have to look forward to nothing, ok, so so, here's a here's a slide about some good things about aging. Which. Kate, prompted, us. Me to put into here so that we wouldn't all you, know. Okay. Good. So. Cognitive. Psychologists, make a distinction between crystallized. Versus, fluid intelligence fluid, intelligence is, is, and. Both of them are measured, to a certain extent by. Intelligence. Tests. Highclere. Sterilized intelligence, is what you would call knowledge, and. Of course that grows with age. Fluid. Intelligence is, sort, of the ability to solve novel, problems, on the spot and that. Increases. With age until certain age and then starts to decline and again. It's a highly, variable in some people it doesn't decline in and others it, declines steeply. Greater. Vocabulary. With age more. Real-world experience, to draw from less, tendency to worry, higher. Rates of life sex satisfaction. Senior, discounts, and as someone, said it's better than any alternative. Okay. So. Because. My. Talk is supposedly. Limited, to about 40 minutes I, am, going to not. Cover all of the age-related changes, that. That, the book covers not, even close I'm just gonna sample, a couple of them and if. You're interested, you. Can read the book which apparently they're going to be giving away some copies, of or, at least giving them to groups I guess to, have as a resource. So. With vision for, example, these. Are the kinds of things that can occur don't. Necessarily. Occur but, they can occur so degrees, to decrease, the ability to focus close. Or. Farsightedness. It's an another, way of putting it presbyopia is the technical term. Lower. Sensitivity, to light heightened. Sensitivity clear, lens. Yellowing. Etc. So. So. Here are some examples, so if you're looking at a screen of a cell phone. And. Your, vision is normal, that the what's depicted, on the left is supposedly. That. So what what that is is just a standard. Screen of some app and, then, if you have presbyopia, or farsightedness, and you've forgotten, your. Reading. Glasses which I apparently. Have forgotten, I normally. Carry them here. You. Might not be able to read what's, on the screen if the font is too small and, the. Or the text is too light, then. Glare. Sensitivity. Is. Just. What it sounds like because of a lifetime, of, of exposure. To. Scratches. And things your cornea, and your retina might be scratched and. Not retina but your cornea and your lens might be scratched and therefore they, or you're going to experience glare, and. That. Might, inhibit, your ability to read or to see detail. Or. To work. At night I have, friends who are my age who, will not drive at night anymore because. The, lights oncoming. Cars are too, glaring to them but. Consider, this. You're. 28, years old and you. Go, out to the swimming pool and you pull out your phone and. The sun's glaring down on the screen that's not.

Designed For sun, clearing down on it okay so, glare, sensitivity, is not restricted. To, older. Adults in some. Situations, that can apply to people. Of all ages, then. We have lens yellowing, which is in, when. Your your lens supposed. To ultraviolet light over, many, years it, becomes your. Lens in your cornea become yellowed, and therefore. Any. App that uses. Blue. Versus green as a information. Carrying element, becomes, hard to distinguish, or if. As, I've seen some apps some news apps put. Ads, or, pseudo, news with. A yellow, background well. Everything's, yellow on my screen so I can't. See those. And. Then. Reduce. Light sensitivity. The. Average, 60, year old needs three times as much light as a twenty year old to be able to seem perceive, the same brightness and. So. Things. Are going to look darker what. We often do when Kate and I actually give a workshop on this topic as we bring, in a whole bunch of sunglasses and, have people in the room put them on, and. Then it makes the whole room dark and. That's what. Some people experience, when they get older. So. You know some examples, for. Example. Tiny. Text, so. This is tiny text is a rampant, problem everyone, complains about it everyone. Over 50 complaint claims about it pretty much and so. The, Social Security. Administration. Which you. Would think would be aimed. At older, adults, their. Website. Let's. Just say the. Method that they provide, for making the tete the font larger is. Not. So easy. Because. What happens is you go to their home page you say I, can't read some of this let me make the font bigger so. You, scroll. Down to the bottom you. See. You. Look you look carefully if you can read any of this, eventually. You find. See. Accessibility. Is what I'm looking for and I'm not even seeing it here oh. There. It is yes right there, okay. By. The way visual. Search among older adults. Slows. Down okay so anyway. We'll. Come back to that so, you click. On accessibility, if. You can find it and then. It takes you to this accessibility. Page which. You then scroll, down and. It. Says. I. Can't. See very well. As. Soon as you see that you see I can't see very well if. You can find it, then. You click on increase, text size and. You. Would expect, that to increase the text size but. What does it do it tells. You how to increase the text size in your browser. Which. Nobody. Is, going, to do, they're. Gonna hit back back. Back, close. The browser and say, you know what I didn't need to do that anyway. Whereas. Its senior health. We. Give it a thumbs up or a green, checkmark because, basically, they, have a. Little, widget on their homepage which, you just click glitter there. And. Makes. The font bigger or. Smaller. Whatever. You want okay. In, addition to straight, visual, defects. Or different deficits, that occur in some, people with age there's, visual cognitive. Deficits, so, as I mentioned. Slow. Older. Adults are known to be slower on visual search tasks, and there's also difficulty. Finding. Very, small subtle, screen, elements, so, one small subtle screen element that. Many. Of us are familiar with is this. Little bar at the bottom of our Macintosh. Screen which. Has. Little, black, dots that indicate the app is running or not but. The. People we see talk to in the senior, centers where Kate. Has done some, work. Can't. See those dots they. Might as well not be there. Now. One could argue that on Macintosh it's not that important to know whether an application is running or not but, they. Try to provide, the information they're, just not providing, it for a large segment of the population and, then, we have. Situations. Like this one at Rhodes, Scholar which is one of these travel, agencies, that targets, older adults.

So. Let's say you're you're. Looking at a trip, and you're thinking about. So. Bad I didn't bring my my, reading glasses. So. Close you're wanting, to. You're. You're looking down here and you're. Wanting to travel. On. This trip and you. Say okay February, 27. 2016. And. I don't like those dates let me change the dates of the trip so. You you. Change the dates okay, this is a good this is a good date I like I would like this trip but. You may not notice that the price which is over here just went out by $300. Okay. Now. Maybe road Scholar wants, you to not notice that the price just went up for by $300, but but, anyway this is not good design, because. Obviously. There's. A sort of a visual attention. Change. Blindness, problem, and. Designed, in here. I. Mentioned. A visual search for, older adults is, slower. So. Here's. An example so, if I put you on this Amazon page and I. Say tell. Me how many items are in your shopping cart. That. Is a visual, tasks that, will officially. In. Which people, of all ages will perform at approximately, the same speed, because. Everyone. Knows or, at least people who have been using Amazon. At all know. Where their shopping cart is upper right so. That. Won't vary, by age but, if I tell people, instead to tell, me what, are the some of the benefits, find some of the benefits, of Amazon, Prime membership. Then. What. We get into is a search. Task that for. The. Older people, is slower. And. There. Are various reasons for that which I won't go into right, now, things. Are going on. Cognitively. Then. In terms of motor control the, kinds of things, that can occur as people, age and. Again. Don't necessarily, always occur, but. Sometimes, do our reduced, hand-eye coordination fine. Motor control strength. Reduce. Strength slower movements, and stiffness so. One. Of the ways you have of measuring that as a researcher is. Noticing. That a fits, la curve how, many of you have heard of fits law so, fits law is the, law that sort, of predicts. Helps you predict how long it will take someone, whose pointer. Or finger, is one. Place to move to another target, spot. That. Curve flattens, out. With. Age meaning, that, the peak velocity is. Lower. The. Acceleration. Rate at, the beginning of move the movement is lower. And. So. They. Overall time to, reach, and hit, the target is longer.

So. What. Those, kinds of motor control changes, causes difficulty, grasping, and manipulating, small objects. Difficulty. With continuous, movements, like click direct drag, tap. Drag tap, hold pinch, spread, double tap gestures. One. Of the things that I am. Amused by or, maybe. Not. Amused is a better, term. On. The Macintosh, and. Also, on many, iPhones the. Accessibility. Features are turned. On and off via, via, gestures. That many, older adults cannot, execute reliably. So. So. Adult, older adults have difficulty. Often. Executing. Coordinated, gestures. Also. There's a decreased consistency. Of movement, just because I can, click. On that target or do is pinch spread. Right. Now doesn't mean I'll be able to do it in a minute. Okay. The. Same way, one. Thing that's happening to me with increasing, frequency as, I'm trying to grab, something and drag it to a new place and losing. It in the. Mean time and. I. Don't know where it went if it falls into a folder, or something. Greater. Risk of an unintentional. Click or touch. Accidental. Selection, of objects. So. Here's. A video, again, from the travel study of. Someone. Trying to book. A trip to Kenya. Using. A menu, system of website that has menus that are pull right so you pull them down and then you have to pull to the right in order to get the submenu. You've all seen those kind of menus I'm sure so, let's watch. So. Like I went when I went up here to you. Know to get the country first you, know I went up here to go to you. Know go up here to. Here. Okay. So. It's. Taken me like five times. So. Anyone. Had any trouble with those, kind of menus. Okay. And it's so sand not just older, adults. Then, there are cognitive changes, like attention, learning and memory. Reduced. Short-term memory less, effective, long-term, memory storage. Less. Generalization. Between situations. People. Morose, easily, overwhelmed, so here's an example of the latter. Okay. Now this is this, I should say this person, travels. All over the world sets, up clinics and and libraries, and schools. Is. Very. Well, educated. And it very well traveled, not, at all senile, but, is totally overwhelmed, by the travel, website of, the. Company that she almost always uses to go traveling, and. So what does she do she. Looks, at the site to get out what. Trips exist, and then, she gets on the telephone. Cognitive. So. Cognitive guidelines, that, come out of this kind of thing are to focus attention on important, information and calls to action, which. Is not what drugstore.com, does. Ok. So drugs. Are economist aimed at people over 50 but. With. All this stuff changing, I mean, we thought we found that when big when, big images. Changed. On a page. People. Think people who, are especially not in the generation, that know about navigation. And user interfaces, think. That they've gone to a different page it. Took me to a different page why did it do that it didn't.

Take You to different pages just changed that picture oh, I. Thought it was on a different page. So. The, Android voice recorder, is the. Pair you, know pair of dominica paradigm. At a jig Matic example, of simplicity, it. Is, can't. Get much more simple than that so, that's one one, call to action on. The screen at a time and that's good in. Our book that's good literally. In our book that's good. And, then there's knowledge differences. Like these so, unfamiliar, with digital check jargon, and icons, not. Knowing control, gestures, but. People have older. People have greater domain, knowledge that is tests. Have shown that older, adults are actually, better at. Sault at doing search, tasks. When the search tasks, are ill-defined. They're. Not as good as younger people at, doing well-defined search tasks, what. Is the capital of. Brazil. Okay. That's a well-defined search task but, a an. Ill-defined search task is find. A vacation that you would like. That's. Ill-defined, older. Adults actually have more domain, knowledge and can, solve, those problems, usually faster, than young adults so. Here's. An example of, unfamiliar. Vocabulary. Check. For update and new update is available in this version you will have the option to select between light and dark UI themes. From. The settings menu well. My my. Aunt would, think that that is, unemployment. Insurance or, something. UI. Is a is. A technical. Term that we use in the field it. Should not be in a user interface of a, mobile. Phone. And. Here's one, of my pet peeves is. What. Is the menu system what is the symbol for a menu well. Over. Here in this app is. And. So, this is androids. Voicemail. App the. Menu is three dots in, Google. Translate, it's the. Hamburger. In. Ways, it's. A, dancing. Pig. Okay. So. Let's. Can we can. We agree that it would it be a good idea to settle on one symbol for what a menu is, right. Rather than having ones that not, only, see. Well what we're doing is requiring people, who, didn't, grow up with this stuff to, learn these, things but. To learn them in the context, of having, inconsistencies. In, what are the symbols. That's. Not easy. I, use. Ups. As an example of a well-designed, website that, works for, everybody. So, the last thing I'll mention is. That. Our. Book has a chapter on how, to why. And how to include, older adults. In development. And. Actually, we also have a chapter on case. Studies of other, organizations. And companies that have. Designed. For older adults successfully, by including older adults in the development process so there, are variety. Of publications. And methods, for. Making. Sure that the people who are doing your user research, with include. Some. People. Over 50. Here's. An example of. Some. Students. At a college who are developing, lightweight. Walker's, that, are. Actually, more, portable, and easy to. Put. In a car and things like that and, are. Very lightweight and stable, and so they develop some prototypes, out, of. Tubing. And things, and then they try them out with actual. Older, adults. So. That's one method is really using older adults in, your research, another. Method, that has been used is. It's. Called empathic, design but basically you, put a suit, on a 25. Year old that, restricts, their movement, and you tell them to sign a car that you can get in and out of. Easily. Ford. Actually does this okay. And many. Auto some auto companies. Actually do that they put. People. In suits or, they put goggles on them that restrict their vision or, they, put. Things, on their heads that we restrict their hearing and they, say design a system that you can use with all of the impairments, that this stuff, we're putting on you.

You. Know that will work despite. That so. That's another way to inspire. Empathic. Design. So. We. Give these kind of this. Kind of advice. Include. Older adults and participatory, design and evaluation. Be. Sensitive in communication. When you're doing it avoid technical. Jargon, and elders speak. And. Optimize. The sessions, there's a lot you have to do when you're using people. Who were in their 70s and and 80s. When, you're doing, usability testing, that's not the same as you would do with people, who were in their 20s. Including. Allowing extra time and. Eating. The cookies that they offer you. Eldar, speak is it's. Sort of like you've. Read about, kids. Speak so mothers, talk mother mother, ease is the word for when, you talk to a two-year-old like hello, Billy, come please come into the room now you, know and use this sort, of stressed language, which, actually, linguist. Has said helps, people, learn language, right but, when you do that with older, adults and people tend to do this with people who are in their 80s oh here's. Grandma, grandma. How are you. You, know grandma's going I'm, I'm fine. Why. Are you yelling at me. So. You know just when, you're when you go to a Senior Center and you're helping people learn how to use iPads don't. Do, that. So. The summary is. These. Things. You. Know there's a lot of a growing. Number of older adults in the world the. Percentage of older adults is increasing, a. Person's. Technology. Generation influences. Which technologies. They're going to be comfortable with and here's, the things I always. Like to say. You. Know people. Now who, are young think okay so I'm always gonna know how to use this stuff but 25. Years from now we. Will not have digital technology, we'll have quantum. Technology, and the. Paradigms, will be different and so people, will be saying I just, don't get this quantum technology, but my kids maybe, they can fix all my quantum equipment for me you. Know so. So. Get, used to it the world changes, and you're. Not going to keep up with everything, you, will keep up with certain things especially if it's related to your job. Usability. Issues can include, older, people from exclude older people from benefits, of, today's. Digital culture, which, are great for that, for. That population for, older adults the, benefits. You. Know I am, a firm, believer in the Ben it's a digital, technology. For older. Adults and we. Just have to make sure that they can benefit. From it. So. With, that I will say, thank you very much. Are. There questions. We. Can take questions live in this room we also have a Dory which. That's. Right are, there any questions in here first if not I'll just read from the Dory ok, so, I, had. A question and maybe, Kate can pitch. In on some of these right questions, too so. For. Me it seems that a big challenge in this work is helping people to accept, the fact that their abilities, are changing. Yeah. What have you seen that's. Helpful, for this to. Help people accept, the fact that maybe. Things aren't what. They used to be. Well. Let me first say one, thing that. Is. Not helpful. There. Are. There. Have been attempts, to develop. You. Know, computers. For older people. They. Don't do. Well in the market because, people look at the bingo, I would. Never use that. I'm. Not old, you. See the thing is actually, the. AARP. Has done a survey, of their members and found out that, none. Of their members are old. Only. The, parents, of their, members are old so, you're never old your parents, are the ones who are old however, old you are right. So so, any piece, of equipment that marks. You as an older, adult is, not going to be popular, so. The question is how can we do, this in a way that. Doesn't. Sort of say this is this is the technology for older adults and this is the technology for everyone else. So. I don't, know if I answered the question which was how, do you get. People to recognize that, these things are happening. I. Don't. Really have a general, answer to that question, I guess what I can say is that from my own personal experience. It, was kind of forced on me when I suddenly realized, it, only had cataract, surgery in one eye and then they, gave me a. Fake. Lens in the other eye and first I asked if I could have one that did telephoto, but they said they couldn't do that. But. Now. I have to wear reading glasses all, the time unless if when I'm when, I'm reading, at distances.

Closer Than a couple of feet and. So. I. Wasn't. I didn't have any choice but to accept, the. Fact that these changes are occurring. When I was in college I did gymnastics if. I tried those things now I would probably die. So. I'm not going to do them. Okay. Do you have any. I. Don't think it's an answered question, I think that in. Our culture especially. In. Our questioners is in. Our culture especially aging. Is like we said not sexy. And people, don't embrace it and people, don't want, to admit to it or own up to it and what, Jeff said about stigmatizing. People by giving them dumped, down. Interfaces. Or applications. Is definitely. Not the answer people, don't want a few, people you know have you ever seen the Jitterbug phone I mean, it's. Simple but it's. It's pretty insulting, to a lot of. Okay. So I think that trying to my. Answer is we need a cultural, shift you need to embrace aging. I. Mean, in some cultures it's actually cool to be old right in Japan it. Is you. Know the olders. Elders. Are more respected. And you. Know if you happen to be a Maasai living, in the Tanzania, in, the Serengeti, the, elders are you know looked, greatly. Up to but. Not, in our culture. Okay. Many older folks are on a fixed income, so. They can't afford to replace their phones or laptops every. Three years what, problems, does this pose I. Addressed. A conference. On the, digital, divide earlier. This year and. The. Costs of equipment, and trying. To install, it and trying to get technology, support. We're, enormous, and so many people, who fall. In the cracks they're. Abandoned. The technology, if it's too challenging for them and it's it's, really irresponsible. For. Those of us who are responsible for such things, just. Shut them out like that to, not make things easier for them, to use and set up and maintain or for the government to not make broadband. Basically. Free and, and, make a economic. Divide to. It's, a big, divider. For, older, people and people on fixed incomes, not only the cost but also there's, a mindset, which is you. Know, this. Royal. Typewriter, was, passed down to me by my father and my girl his father got, passed it to him well, I should now be able to pass on my my cat Macintosh to my to. My kids or grandkids, you. Know well we, could we could design this thing so. That there's a little module, that I switched out and that was the CPU and I put in a new one every three years rather than having to buy spend, $3,000. For a whole new machine right. The display doesn't change. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Let, me ask this, which is I think a little bit related so, Jeff I was. Looking back through some of your earlier writings and I saw that you were writing in the 90s about the public interest in having a national, information infrastructure. How, does net neutrality affect, our efforts to build a more accessible, world. Well. My. Personal belief is that the. That. Net net neutrality would help but, it's, apparently, been, gotten away with on away which as of yesterday. You. Know I I grew up with a notion of the. Internet as an example of something the. Way that we formally, in the telephony era called. Common. Carriage, so. Common carriage was a term, that was actually created when. Stagecoaches, were running letters, around and basically, idea is that. Wells. Fargo. Stagecoaches. Should not put, any priority on Wells Fargo. Messages. Over anybody, else's messages, I should, be able to put any letter on the, Pony Express and, it should be able to get there and exactly the same amount of time for it's exactly the same amount of money so, common carriage was born and it was applied to railroads, and to truck trucking, and then. To the telephone company. And. Then. To the internet so cut and the word for common carriage and the Internet age was, net neutrality and. Now. That. Is being gotten. Rid of and so. The. Question. Is how would that impact what.

Accessibility. Yeah. So. So. Companies. Companies. That can control everything, and there have are not regulated, can always go for the low hanging fruit, in their, particular industry whatever. It may be one. Of the things that's happening in San Francisco, is that the cab companies, which are highly regulated and, must. Give. Rides to people, who are emote. You have disabilities. Of, various, kinds. Feel. Like they're, being regulated. Well. Uber and lyft don't, have those same restrictions, applied to them so the playing, field is not level but. So, what we see is drivers. In. An. Uber and lyft and things like that who just do, not want, to. Pick. Up people who are mobility. Impaired for example. Okay. I think this is our last question it's, the last one on the dory unless I see a wave oh yeah okay let's, have this question before we do that I. Thank. You for your talk today what. Are your thoughts on the potential for voice interfaces. To serve the needs of older adults and I, will stipulate, that there are real issues to, solve around comprehension. And comprehensibility. But let's say we're addressing those as fast, as we can more. Broadly how my voice interfaces helped I. Think. It shows a lot of promise. Especially. If we're, not talking about somebody having to learn a, command-line. Interface that, they just speak if it's if it's a natural language interface and, very generalized, broad. Topic, I, think. Something. I actually talked, to Tim about the first time I met him was I don't understand, why you can't say to Siri. Change. My contrast, settings you know why can't it's. Kind of a meta in a interface. Because, why do I need to know why do I need to know what. Password or what protocol. Or something you just need to do this for me or I should ask you to do this for me and I think that if it, is if you lay. Over I don't know if you want to call it AI on top of voice interface or some huge. Amount of smarts on top of a spoken, interface that, that if, even if it doesn't level the playing field would, make things an awful awful lot easier, vero. Said that there is some difficulty. With automatic. Speech. Recognition for. Older voices that have trim, trembles, and inconsistent. Volumes and things yeah the frequency, of speech, tends, to go up as we age the. Auditory. Frequency. And yeah. Yeah. I mean the problem that that Kate, was referring to for. Example is that it, it's not that serious and smart enough where Google now isn't smart enough it's. That they don't have an API into, everything. That they need to have an API into, right. They. I mean I'm surprised. Often, what, these things can do for example they. Can actually control the count they can access the calendar and they can they, can set up appointments and stuff like that they can make phone calls so they do have api's, into other parts of the operating system, but.

If They can't access, the accessibility. Controls and there's somebody. Forgot somebody. Forgot to provide that can. I have one little remark. About, this okay it's it's to me it's a big deal as as, people age they tend to become more socially, isolated. And we all read about oh it's so important, not to be lonely because that leads to depression, and. And. In, some. Usability. Studies, where they like here have this little robot or, here have this have. This device, what. What, has been found is that if you have a, reasonably. Intelligent quote/unquote, intelligent. Spoken. Interface. Whether. It's a robot or not that, it alleviates. Some degree of loneliness, and I'm not saying you, know to heck with your friends and family I'm just going to talk to the. Voice menu on the phone it's not that at all but, people can be so socially, starved, that that does it. Does, give them some, emotional. Benefit, and they can feel like they've got, you. Know, like you hear people talking to alexa, and syrian but. It's. Some semblance. Of human contact that they might otherwise be, missing and certain, people who don't some. People don't want to do online banking, because. A they're, afraid they're gonna get hacked but they, want to go into it bank and see the bank teller and have, exchanged. Some words with, somebody, and. Bound. And they've had i there's, some. Robots. In social. Robots i would say in europe and and. People find it's like a little friend so. I think there's another benefit. To a spoken-- interface, that we. Don't realize. For. The general population. It's. Interesting you may have answered our last question, which someone, else put on to this story that. Was which Google products do you think has the biggest opportunity, for serving, older adults which. Google what which, Google product, so if you look at Google's, products what has the most opportunity, to be improved. To help older adults. Well. Sorry. The. Cars right, that's, that's that's the cars that the driverless cars is a. Good place. Because. So many people use. The. Google search. Engine. That. Also. Is a good, place to. Improve. It's, not that it's bad. It's. Just that the, more the.

The Easier the, search, results, can be. Reviewed. And dealt with the. Better it would be for everyone including, older adults speech. Yes. And speech so. Yeah Google now the. Cars and this. General, search engine. Okay, great, last call for questions. Okay. Yes. One, of your quotes said something about very, thin typefaces. And. That. Seems to be kind of a popular design trend in in some areas or. Has been and. Also. Light contrast. How. Are you I'm great yeah, yeah, I see. You know like medium, gray on white and it's it's, really, hard to see in a lot of cases, what. Can we do about, some. Of these some. Of these design, trends, and try and I don't. Know nip, them at the but if you will if, their, usability. Characteristics. Are that bad. There. Was this whole minimalist, thing and, again I'm mostly familiar with the Mac stuff and. And, I've tutored so, many older adults at different places and they just can't see, it they can't see the lightweight font they can't see gray on a white or another gray background and the, other. Thing is popular. Was. White font, on a black background especially, if it's small. Ish and when, Jeff was talking about. The. Social security site you had to go through seven screens to increase because most of the people that. We dealt with don't. Know oh command post command - to increase, they don't know about that so. The. Size, the, the contrast, and the size of things is. Impenetrable, to, them I don't know what the best avenue for complaining, about it. Well. The. Best I don't think the best Avenue is complaining, about it the best Avenue is teaching. People what. Speeching. Teaching future future, designers, what design really is that. Is, the. Most of the students who come into my use at UX design class at usf believe. That the. Class is going to be mostly about graphic, design and I. Quickly abyss, abuse them of that idea. And. I tell them that it's know it. First. Of all many, of them think that, design. Is about personal expression, and, I say it's not about you at all it's. About them right. So we have to figure out who they are and what they want and what, they need but. The other thing is that it's not even mostly about graphic design it's, about making sure that people can complete their tasks or we achieve their goals and, you. Know that's, mostly, not. Visual. Okay, thanks, everyone for coming and participating and, especially, Jeff and Kate thanks for coming to Google today. You.

2018-01-29 12:02

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Comments:

Admire google again having a thought on it and seems to me there is a team of people working on it. Now i am confident the technology is in safe hands.

Making web and internet accessible in the way to encourage them to use internet.

See if i ask my parents to do what i do on web they find it way difficult. Its easy for us becuase we grow with technology we see changes from cd to airdrop. But the elderly were not aware of these changes. So we want to include them in the new technology we want their inputs and contributions. We must do sth which can accommodate them too.

You are TAB* people -- *Temporarily Able Bodied Just use empathy and compassion.

James Damore did nothing wrong.

Improving human-computer interaction is great, though aging itself is the root problem to address. Get involved discord.gg/ftSbffu

Nice

E S I think Aubrey de Grey gave talks at google didn't he?

im 50 what is this

he looks like Jim Jarmusch in the thumbnail

You mean with bigger keyboards that have large letters?

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