eric rochow

My father-in-law calls every weekend to tell me about the wonderful weather in N.C. But we also talk about Gardenfork and Real World Green.

He is Gardenfork’s community liason to the retirement crowd, spreading the word of online video to the retirement masses. Today he brought up an important point for everyone to keep in mind when designing web sites and user interfaces.

You can’t see the buttons on your site

Some of the buttons to play the Gardenfork videos are grey on white, not my choice, but that’s how the Flash player used on the site is designed.

The next thing he said is what everyone needs to keep in mind going forward.

You have to realize, you’re dealing with 70 year olds here.

Small buttons don’t work for older people. I’m at the point where I finally have to use reading glasses, and its only going to get worse, staring at computer screens all day.

More and more older people are using the web, we need to make it usable for them as well as 16 year olds. It is a must-do for web marketers, as seniors have more money than 16 yr olds.