Abstract
This study offers insights, gathered from co-design activities with older adults, on the design of e-commerce websites. Twenty older adults (aged 52–75 years) took part in a paper-based design activity in which they were presented with a web browser window, cutouts of a selection of web objects (e.g., product images and “add to cart” buttons) in a range of designs, and office stationery for making annotations and asked to select and place web objects onto the browser window to express their design ideas for two types of shopping experience: purchasing a grocery item that is inexpensive and typically purchased in multiples (carrots) and purchasing an assistive technology item which is considered expensive and normally purchased as a one-off (wheelchair). Objects selected frequently by the older adults for inclusion in both types of e-commerce websites included product images, price, and an “add to cart” button. Some objects were selected for inclusion depending on the type of website—quantity selection was selected for the cheap, multiple purchase item, whereas descriptions, reviews, and shipping/return information were deemed important only for the expensive, single-item purchase. Regarding the relative placement of the “add to cart” button, participants most often placed the button close to the quantity selection and/or the price. Furthermore, participants expressed that having these three elements presented within a visually distinctive “buy box” would be beneficial. This study offers insight into which website elements are deemed important by this older adult participant group for e-commerce websites and how the elements should be arranged, and the results also indicate that some design requirements may differ between different types of shopping experience. The findings can potentially benefit designers, developers, and industries to more fully grasp the potential of usable online shopping applications.
Highlights
Guidelines and principles on designing web pages for older adults are well established and widely accepted, and they include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (Caldwell et al, 2008), SilverWeb Guidelines (Zaphiris et al, 2009; Zaphiris et al, 2007; Kurniawan and Zaphiris 2005), and senior-friendly guidelines (Hodes and Lindberg 2009)
Participants were asked to place physical web objects where they would expect to see them on the presented user interfaces
The vertical list layout presents one product per column, usually with an image at the top, the “add to cart” button usually placed near the bottom, and the other web objects arranged to be read from top to bottom
Summary
Guidelines and principles on designing web pages for older adults are well established and widely accepted, and they include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (Caldwell et al, 2008), SilverWeb Guidelines (Zaphiris et al, 2009; Zaphiris et al, 2007; Kurniawan and Zaphiris 2005), and senior-friendly guidelines (Hodes and Lindberg 2009). Rice and Alm (2008) used low-tech objects, such as a blank canvas and graphical cutouts of various components (e.g., menu, labels, and icons) to investigate the use of digital television among older adults They discussed techniques that can help to promote active discussion, elicit the reasoning behind people’s ideas and suggestions, and encourage participants to provide opinions about the ways in which other people in their age group would use technology. A participant is presented with a workspace and design materials such as office stationery (e.g., markers, post-it notes, stickers, and labels) and prepared materials (e.g., plastic icons) to articulate their design, and the design sessions are video recorded Motivated by these previous studies reporting the successes and benefits of using paper-prototypes with older adults (Rice and Alm 2008; McGee-Lennon et al, 2012), we adopted this method with an aim of engaging participants in the design process and to generate as much feedback as possible during co-design activities. Participants were asked to place physical (paper cutout) web objects (e.g., menu, product image, and “add to cart” button) where they would expect to see them on the presented user interfaces
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