As a design company that works a lot with senior living companies, we might be a little extra cautious about making sure our designs are inclusive and accessible for all. We think a lot about the user experience (UX), especially when it comes to designing websites for retirement communities.
UX design is a method of designing content that keeps the user in mind throughout the design process. The goal is that the final product provides the user with a meaningful and relevant experience, meeting their needs straightforwardly. This means you have to start by thinking about your audience and who will use the product you’re designing.
For our senior living clients, like The Greens at Cannondale for example, the audience we have in mind is adult children who are looking for a new home and care for their elderly parents. We also have to think about the seniors themselves, making sure that they’re able to navigate and gain information from the site easily as well.
Designing websites with seniors in mind requires you to focus on accessibility, particularly in terms of color and contrast. Color is one of the most important aspects of designing a website for the elderly, and ignoring it automatically prevents a significant percent of the population from comfortably using your site – particularly when dealing with senior living.
Older eyes often can’t pick up slight differences in contrast, and certain colors like blue and purple don’t appear discernibly different from each other. It’s important to keep in mind that what might look like a pretty design to young eyes could seem more like a confusing mess to older ones.
Searching for the perfect senior living community for a loved one can be a stressful time. Websites shouldn’t add more stress to that plate. These sites should be intuitive and easy to navigate and learn information from. If important pages are hidden or difficult to find, it can frustrate the user and leave them with a bad impression of that community.
For The Greens, we create a site with easy-to-read fonts, high contrast between the content and the background, and a clear menu navigation that allows users to easily find the information they’re looking for. We also made sure to minimize distractions and incorporate clear calls to action throughout each page.
We had a great time working with The Greens on their website to create a design everyone loved and agreed made sense for their customer base. As we talked about in a previous blog on website usability, it’s important to remember that your website is for your customers, not for you.
For any site, you have to make sure that it will make sense to someone from the outside looking in. Will your website make sense to everyone, or does it just make sense to you because you already know all about your company? Is your site easy to navigate, or might it be confusing to someone unfamiliar with your company?
Considering the needs of all your potential users shows that you value them and enhances their experience with your site. This can lead them to think more highly of your company and be more likely to consider doing business with you.
Plus, many of these features not only make your site more accessible for users with disabilities or diverse needs but also make for a better experience for all users. If you’re looking to make your website more inclusive and accessible for all, let us know!
