User Research With Participants Over Age 55 (Part 1)
This is the first article of two.
In this first post, I will explain why age is a factor in user research, and why age is also an oversimplification of a person’s experiences. In the follow-up post, I will go into detail on how to go about planning user interviews for this specific user group.
Technology users 55+ are particularly important when developing technology that reaches a diverse set of potential customers, and one that becomes more important as we become more tech-dependent. To that end, here are some things to consider.
Early Adopters Vs. Everyone Else
Knowing your users is important. When designing an innovative software product for users willing to risk their time and money, it’s critical to know the unique skills and attributes of early adopters.
An early adopter is a user who is willing to try a new task they haven’t encountered before, as opposed to a user who would prefer to wait until they have instructions before proceeding. In the beta stages of an app, early adopters are critical for proof of concept to get the business rolling.
Unfortunately, advanced software products cannot rely on early adopters exclusively. Inevitably you will have to widen your user base to maximize profitability. This article explores the research considerations involved in engaging users 55 and older, and how we might use research to collect ideas to make products more successful.
Age is Not Just A Number
There is a certain type of person that simply doesn’t see technology as something that allows for, let alone requires, trial and error. That fear of making a mistake can be attributed to many things: access to technology, education, culture, language, income level, interest, age, and any number of other factors. It’s important that as researchers, we see age as a complex set of assumptions that we make, that we can and should choose to unpack.
For the purposes of this article, I will refer to users that believe technology does not allow for user mistakes as a factor related to age. Age is a way to simplify the learnability and prior knowledge issues that researchers must address: who knows how to use this software and how well so that I can design software for their needs?
Of course, we must recognize the edge cases: there are 80-year-old expert smartphone users, 65-year-old expert gamers, and 20-year-olds who have never seen a smartphone before.
There Were Computers in 1965!
Speaking of numbers, I define this group of users and participants as those 55 and older humans (give or take a few years) who have not grown up with technology or were not trained on it academically by the mere fact of their age. It’s not an arbitrary number — in 2020 this means people born in 1965 when the world’s first commercial 16-bit minicomputer cost $28,500 (equivalent in purchasing power to about $231,038.22 in 2020). Contrast that to your average millennial, born in the 1980s or 1990s when people actually owned personal computers and could play PacMan on it. By the mid-90’s most kids learned touch typing, phonics, math, and spelling using school PC’s. This knowledge gap is vast and critical for understanding users.
Contrast that with users who are very comfortable with technology, those early adopters I referred to earlier. They aren’t afraid to experiment, to hit a wrong button, to download a new app they found by accident, or to explore new technology completely on their own. The difference between these two groups is the difference between someone who has played the piano for 20 years and is professionally trained and someone who merely has a piano in their home.
Two Critical Factors
Users 55 and older learn technology not from using it, but from having others teach them.
This is critical I will say it again:
Users 55 and older learn technology not from using it, but from having others teach them.
When I refer to this group of users, this is their defining characteristic.
Users 55 and older might learn technology from friends, coworkers, children, grandchildren, or any number of other sources. Typically, it is from family members who have more knowledge and experience with technology than they do, but anyone in their personal relationships might be their favorite.
The exception? Users 55 and older who play video games. This is a subgroup, and obviously, an important one, which I will address in the next article.
This group of users primarily learns from others, however, you mustn’t assume that applies to every participant. To determine if each participant learns primarily from others or learns by discovery, you must ask specific questions about both of these topics. The technology available to them in their environment is key to understanding their knowledge and comfort with technology.
When I talk about my job as a UX designer or User Researcher, a lot of people will say, “Oh! You must be a technology expert!” This always makes me chuckle — I am not a technology expert, I am an expert in understanding how people think. This user group offers a quite fundamental difference from other groups that impact how you conduct research. It will require more careful planning in every stage of the research process to get the level of detail you need to make thoughtful design decisions.
Stay Tuned for Part 2, where I address those issues directly.
