Seniors

U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services: Making Your Website Senior Friendly

This article lists some guidelines on how to tailor a web design to an older audience, based on the National Institute on Aging's research findings. One interesting pattern that the site recommends is using action verbs to qualify links (i.e. "Go to My Account" rather than "My Account"). I find it interesting that of all the websites that I use, the only ones that use this wording for their account buttons/links are the banking websites.

New York Times: A Multitasking Video Game Makes Old Brains Act Younger

From the article): "Brain scientists have discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve the short-term memory and long-term focus of older adults. Some people as old as 80, the researchers say, begin to show neurological patterns of people in their 20s."

Nature: Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults

This is the study that the previous link is reporting on. It's an investigation into how computer can be used to increase multitasking ability in elderly users. One of the more interesting research findings is that the gains in cognitive ability can persist for several months without additional training, and impact non-computer-related tasks.

New York Times: Ageism in Computing

This article is a look at the ageism and issues facing older professionals in the field of computing. While job market trends aren't directly related to HCI, the predominance of young workers in the IT/computing industry is probably a major contributing factor towards why elderly users may find computer systems to be harder to use - they're being designed by people who can all read small fonts and who grew up with the Internet.

Guide Project: Gentle User Interfaces for Elderly People

This European Commission funded project aims to create "a software framework and design tools which allows developers to efficiently integrate accessibility and personalisation features into their applications, minimizing intervention with existing development process and tools". Interestingly, the site homepage uses an 11px font...

Monochrome BBS

Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) predate the Internet and were most popular from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Monochrome is one of the oldest BBSes still active. Many elderly computer users who had a computer before the advent of the Internet probably used BBSes for communication, by hooking their computers up to telephone modems. It's interesting to see how even though the surface-level interactions with online discussion communities have changed, the underlying structure and topics of most Internet-based forums are virtually identical to those of their BBS precursors.

Youth

One Laptop Per Child

The OLPC project is trying to educate the world's children with low-cost laptops running custom educational software. The laptops are designed to be ruggedized and come with hand crank and solar chargers, and their user interface is designed for users who may be illiterate.

Smashing Magazine: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

This article comes from one of the best web design blogs. It's brief, but highlights 4 specific principles of particular importance when designing touch interfaces for children.

Microsoft Research: Kodu

Microsoft's Kodu is a programming language that allows children to create their own games. It's under active development and some examples of games created with the language can be seen at kodugamelab.com.

Social benefits of a tangible user interface for children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions

This study looks at using tangible user interfaces for increasing social development in children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions. They use Legos and Lego robots as well as a prototype robotic toy called Topobo to investigate whether the interactive systems would be more effective than standard Legos at spurring social interaction. (An unrelated, but extremely cool example of a tangible user interface can be seen here).

Gloson Blog

A high-traffic blog written by "a 15-year-old kid who lives in Malaysia". It's interesting to see how some children intuitively understand computers and the Internet at a very young age.

The Oregon Trail

The classic educational video game. The original version is still playable online via an in-browser Apple II emulator.