My grandmother is in her late 70s and she loves the internet. We talk on AIM, we email, and recently she started getting into some interesting web apps around the internets — specifically Geni. But are developers doing anything to help seniors out in order to better capture that market?
Nana and Geni as a Case Study
Seniors have some decent spending power and they’re willing to give up some change in order to make their lives easier. Surely there are some sites out there that might fill this niche. I think Geni and other genealogy sites are a good example of that. Old people love that stuff.
My grandmother and her sister were already working on genealogy projects using tried and true pencil/paper systems. When I explain to her how putting all this information they had gathered into a database where it could edited and changed easily, she was in love. This would have been impossible, though, if Geni wasn’t very easy to use and employed simple concepts when setting out to solve problems.
Girl boxes are pink and boy boxes are blue. It sounds simple, duh, and it is. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science, it’s just simplest of concepts that might be overlooked from a developer perspective. Further digging shows how hassle-free adding a new person to the tree is, or checking up on family, or adding photos.
The Senior Market
The senior internet market is actually (surprisingly, perhaps) very healthy.
In 2006, there were 17.6 million Internet users in the US ages 62 and older, according to eMarketer. By 2011 that number will increase to 25.4 million. A 7.6% average annual growth rate is not too shabby — especially when you consider that’s more than twice the 3.1% growth rate eMarketer forecasts for the entire US Internet population.
This may have something to do with seniors today enjoying better health, longer and more active lives, greater free time and higher discretionary income than past generations.
7 Responses to “Building Web Apps for Seniors”rss
CSS Collection » Blog Archive » Building Web Apps for Seniors, on June 5th, 2008, said:
[...] to keep them in mind when building a web site that includes them in the audience. Get advice on Building Web Apps for Seniors from Travis Vocino. Thursday, June 5th | [...]
trexpenn, on June 6th, 2008, said:
Geni is quite intriguing. I’d definitely check it out. If I can suggest something, as I’m assuming you live far from your grandmother, if (maybe) you don’t already know, check out Crossloop for remote desktop sharing as its really easy to use. There might be times when your grandma needs some PC help from you.
Jamie, on June 11th, 2008, said:
I’m sure you guys have heard about the cell phone designed just for seniors. I think it’s called the jitterbug and it employs large buttons and large text on the screen. The phone doesn’t have many functions, though. While this phone is a good example of design for seniors, I don’t necessarily believe that removing functions or “dumbing down” the device should be a de facto standard for designing for seniors. I would think that designing for simplicity is not only good for seniors, but for all users.
hilde, on June 12th, 2008, said:
Thats very interesting. I think its a big theme for the future. Thinks for seniors. Thanks for sharring it
Goran Website, on June 16th, 2008, said:
I will pass it on to my mom, I have been helping her understand the Internet and she is 76 this year.
Eva White, on June 19th, 2008, said:
Wow I think this will interest my Aunt. She’s new on the net and intrested in family lines as well.
poor jokes, on September 2nd, 2008, said:
this is really new idea to exlore their world
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