Key Insights From Testing With Older and Disabled Demographics

It’s been a busy and exciting month here at Testmate and we’ve had the opportunity to learn about a variety of UX design problems whilst conducting website usability testing.

Of all our findings, the most interesting trends we have spotted regarding UX problems is that companies often overlook the exact behaviours of important demographics, especially older users or those with disability.

This is usually a case of trying to build a site to accomodate the needs of those demographics without understanding how they really navigate a website thus creating UX problems and issues regarding website accessibility.

If you’re interested in learning about common UX problems and some accessibility tips which could help you and your brand, read on! Here are two major challenges we have encountered in March, while conducting user testing in Australia for a major bank and government services.

Whilst performing navigation testing for a major Australian bank, we found something very peculiar about how users traveled across a page.

Often, they simply didn’t.

When users, mainly above the age of 40, arrived on a page they regularly refused to scroll or were very reluctant.

As the month progressed we noticed this reluctance to scroll across other tests, resulting in many testers not locating important navigation paths or key information.

“Ofter, they Simply didn-t.”

This behaviour is reflective of the older demographic preferring to carefully read available information and informs a simple recommendation. Place key information above the fold!

Overcoming The Hurdle Of Vision Impairment

One of the most interesting tests we undertook this month involved ensuring that users with vision impairment were able to effectively navigate a website.

We quickly realised that the website being tested was not fit to handle such a requirement.  Even our own rigorous testing environment struggled to deal with the requirements of such a challenging test.

According to a survey conducted by Vision 2020 Australia, the Australian Blindness Forum and National Disability Services, 575,000 people who are blind or vision impaired currently live in Australia.  That is almost 2.5% of the population!

So what does this tell us? More can be done for those with vision impairment by first understanding what tools they use to navigate websites and ensuring that the site is properly built to help low vision users at very high magnification.

“575,000”people who are blind or vision impaired currently live in Australia”

For more information, check out our previous blog post on disability here.

Whilst there are no website accessibility standards by law, the ability to understand the needs and behaviours of your demographics is vital to ensuring your website is as effective and satisfying as possible. With the help of user testing, websites can become more accessible for those with a disability or otherwise. Use our insights to inform future changes to your site and make sure you get the most out of every single page click.

Do you have a website you want to test with older, vision impaired or other hard to find Australian demographics? Get in touch and let us help you overcome these challenges!