Designing for older adults: review of touchscreen design guidelines

The distinct abilities of older adults to interact with computers has motivated a wide range of contributions in the the form of design guidelines for making technologies usable and accessible for the elderly population. However, despite the growing effort by the research community, the adoption of guidelines by developers and designers has been scant or not properly translated into more accessible interaction systems. In this paper we explore this issue by reporting on a qualitative outcomes of a systematic review of 204 research-derived design guidelines for touchscreen applications. We report first on the different definitions of "elderly" and assess the reliability, organization and accessibility of the guidelines. Then we present our early attempt at facilitating the reporting and access of such guidelines to researchers and practitioners.