Towards your parents' social network platform - A user interface for the age of retirement

Abstract

Most developed countries face an aging population, leading to various challenges due to this demographic change. On average, people turn from working life to retirement at the age of 65. Related changes in their social environment threat their health, i.e. due to perceived social exclusion. Online Social Networks (OSN) may help them to overcome this problem. However, usability issues due to user interfaces (UI) perceived as inconsistent and confusing among other reasons prevent their adoption by the elderly so far. While UI design for elderly people has been discussed in the literature, few results exist on the 'younger' transition agers between 55-75. Therefore, in the present paper an approach for the design of UI for OSN specific for transition agers is presented and evaluated in a qualitative study. The results indicate that with specific, but not extraordinary UI adjustments, OSN could be made easily usable and more attractive for them.