Older Adults and the Web: Lessons Learned from Eye-Tracking

An eye-tracking study of a prototype website was conducted with 10 younger adults (ages 20-39) and 10 older adults (ages 50-69) to determine if there are differences in how they scan webpages. They performed the same tasks on the website. On the average, the older adults spent 42% more time looking at the content of the pages than did the younger adults. They also spent 51% more time looking at the navigation areas. The pattern of fixations on almost all pages showed that the older adults looked at more parts of the page than did the younger adults. Implications for designing webpages that work well for older adults are provided.