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 tapping, while having to recognize and order numbers. She tested people in three levels of complexity.
There were no differences between the young and middle-age participants, but they both performed faster than the older group. The good news is that the decline wasn’t until people were in their mid-60s. Unlike vision decline, motor decline starts later.
So much of technology use requires fine motor tasks: moving and clicking with a mouse, using a track pad, touching and swiping a smartphone. Many people over age 65 will start to have problems using technology because of motor decline.
Takeaways
- When your target audience includes people over 65, be aware that motor movements become more difficult at that age. If possible, build in voice interactions so people don’t have to do as much fine motor manipulation.
- Don’t assume that older people are taking longer to complete a task because they aren’t thinking as fast. It might be more motor control than cognitive ability.
- Leave space between things on a screen that people have to hit as a target either with their mouse or finger to reduce accidental selecting.
- The larger the target, the easier it is to hit. Make buttons at least 9.6 mm diagonal measurement and maybe even larger if you have a primarily older target audience.