Abstract
Elder adults account for only a small portion of social networking site users despite the numerous benefits provided by social media. Although the number of elder users has grown in the past few years, many are not engaged with social media. Are there any special reasons for the elderly not to take advantage of social media? Are there any accessibility and usability challenges for the elderly to use social media? What are they? How do current social networking sites perform when it comes to accessibility for the elderly? This paper reports the preliminary findings to the above questions based on an instructor’s notes on the discussions within an elderly computer class along with an accessibility evaluation of popular social media sites. The results show that many elders struggle with the understanding of Web 2.0 concepts and interpreting the complex layout of the social networking sites. Many sites do not adhere to respected accessibility standards and guidelines. Findings from this study will contribute to the understanding of the elder adults as a user group and improving the design of a more accessible website for the elderly.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aging statistics (AOA), http://www.aoa.gov/AoARoot/%28S%282ch3qw55k1qylo45dbihar2u%29%29/Aging_Statistics/index.aspx
Alexa.com, http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US
Becker, S.: E-government usability for older adults. Communications of the ACM 49, 102–104 (2005)
Brossoie, N., Roberto, N., Willis-Walton, S., Reynolds, S.: Report on baby boomers and older adults: Information and service needs. Polytechnic Institute and State University, Center for Gerontology, Blacksburg (2010)
Gatto, S., Taka, S.: Computer, internet, and E-mail use among older adults: Benefits and barriers. Educational Gerontology 34, 800–811 (2008)
Graf, P., Li, H., McGrener, J.: Technology usability across the adult lifespan. In: HCI, vol. 2 (2005)
Hawthorn, D.: Possible implications of aging for interface designers. Interacting with Computers 12(5), 507–528 (2000)
HealthyPeople.gov, http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/overview.aspx?topicid=31
Ke, F., Xie, K.: Toward deep learning for adult students in online courses. The Internet and Higher Education 12, 136–145 (2009)
Lerman, K., Jones, L.: Social browsing on Flickr. In: ICWSM (2007); Oblinger, D., Oblinger, J.: Is It Age or IT: First Steps Toward Understanding the Net Generation. EDUCAUSE (2012)
Oblinger, D., Oblinger, J.: Is It Age or IT: First Steps Toward Understanding the Net Generation. In: EDUCAUSE (2012)
Pew Internet, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-Social-Media-And-Privacy/Main-Report/Part-1.aspx
Pew Internet, http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Older-adults-and-internet-use.aspx
Pew Internet, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Adults-and-Social-Network-Websites.aspx
Saunders, E.: Maximizing computer use among the elderly in rural senior centers. Educational Gerontology 30, 573–585 (2004)
Social Security Administration, http://www.socialsecurity.gov/retire2/applying1.htm
Wagner, N., Hassanein, K., Head, M.: Computer use by older adults: A multi-disciplinary review. Computers in Human Behavior 26, 870–882 (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Arfaa, J., Wang, Y.(. (2014). An Accessibility Evaluation of Social Media Websites for Elder Adults. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media. SCSM 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8531. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07632-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07632-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07631-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07632-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)