Jason is 20 years old and he’s deaf. He puts on a special vest that’s wired so that when it receives data, it sends pulses to his back. The vest is connected to a tablet. When I say the word “book” into a microphone that…

The research is clear that people like having a lot of choices, but that providing a lot of choices not only makes it harder for them to take action, but may also induce stress. Designers often make decisions based on preference, not performance. Many designs…

I was pretty strict with my children about video games when they were growing up. Because I had never been a gamer I somehow decided it wasn’t good for my children to spend time playing video or online games. We never owned a game console,…

For quite a while there has been a back and forth in interface design about whether scrolling is a “good” or usable choice. If you have a lot of information or content on a page, should you present it all on one page and have…

Video has become such an important medium online, yet video interface design is given surprisingly little attention. We have special devices and software for presenting text and images, but it seems we think of videos as being something we embed on a page, but can’t…

Let’s say you decide to let your 18-month-old daughter play some learning games on your tablet. You have a couple of apps you’ve downloaded and you’re trying to decide which one to give to her: The one that introduces number and letter concepts with music…

The Pew Research Center surveys parents in the US to get information on technology use for children ages 0 to 11. Here are some of the recent findings: Almost half of the children below the age of 2 regularly use a smartphone. The number is…

If I told you that as people age their neuroplasticity declines—as they get older, they’re less able to learn new things, create new neuronal connections, and retrieve memories—you’d probably nod and say, yes, you’ve heard that’s true. It’s a piece of conventional wisdom that everyone…

Jim is 70 years old. He’s setting up an account to listen to music with an online music app. He’s on the security screen and the form asks him to pick security questions to set up an account and type in the answers. He has…

Unlike vision, motor skills don’t decline until the mid-60s. (One exception is if you have a disease that affects motor skills, such as Parkinson’s.) Priscila Caçola (2013) tested young, middle-aged, and older (over 65) people. She had them perform various fine motor movements, including finger…