The mobilistrictor, or third age suit. Le Monde 2, January 13, 2007.
Le Monde’s weekend magazine offers a profile this week of Seniosphère, a French consulting firm that helps client companies to market more effectively to seniors and baby boomers.
Of particular interest is the company’s use of the third-age suit, an “empathy suit” that’s designed to simulate the reduced mobility, hearing and sight associated with aging. Originally designed by the Ford Motor Company in partnership with the University of Loughborough in the UK, the suit is designed to help designers discover how well their creations work for aging customers.
Goggles reduce vision, and a headset reduces hearing. Heavy gloves simulate the reduced mobility of arthritis. Back, knee and neck braces reduce flexibility, while special shoes make walking painful. Shoulder straps prevent arms from being raised.
The result is a full-body prosthetic that ages its wearer 40 years. Le Monde’s reporter Pascale Krémer describes the experience:
How can I take notes with my
arthritis? The notebook is too small... Too bad. My memory
will have to be more valiant than my body, heavy and stiff
with age. Remember to describe all these unpleasant
sensations. The humiliating effort to extricate myself
from the couch. Knees that refuse to bend to pick up a
handbag on the floor.
Arrived at the supermarket, it’s not arranged well. Why
the devil do they always put the packs of milk so high?
Maybe they think that it’s easy to lift six big bottles at
once, arms stretched out, then put them in the shopping
cart without breaking my back...
Where have they hidden the decaf? All the packages look
the same in this light. Apparently, it’s written too small
on the label. Ah, it’s up there! But how am I going to get
it with this bad shoulder? Damn! I forgot the sparkling
water. Naturally, it’s at the other end of the store. I’ll
skip it. My feet hurt too much to go all the way
back.(*)
Seniosphère has already plunged several mall and supermarket managers into the third-age suit (also called the mobilistrictor, or “mobi” for short). The experience has turned up a range of accessibility issues: Long walking distances, shelves that are too high, shopping carts that are too heavy, too few benches and restrooms.
Empathy is, of course, a cornerstone of good design. Understanding how, and by whom, your creation will be used is crucial to understanding whether it will actually work. The old saw tells us that empathy comes after walking a mile in someone’s shoes. The third-age suit takes it a step further, making you walk a mile in their arthritic knees, hips and back.
Accommodating the physical needs of seniors isn’t just a nice-to-have. One in five Americans is over 55. In France, where few public facilities accommodate disabilities, it’s even higher at one in four. Japan has one in three.
And it’s not just architects and supermarket managers who need to take note. Software and web designers have their own accessibility issues to manage, particularly to accommodate users with reduced vision and motor skills. Robust visual interfaces should include:
- Strong color contrasts
- Flexible font sizes
- Large “click” targets (see Fitts’ Law)
- Markup that’s accessible to screen readers
An online proxy for the third-age suit is to try using your site with a screen reader, a device that reads sites aloud for the vision impaired. I have to confess that I’ve never done that (I’ve never even laid eyes on a real live screen reader), but I’d love to have that experience.
Til then, I need to rely on the various best practices that have been established by accessibility and usability advocates. Some resources to help:
And some more background on the third-age suit:
Tags:
design,
usability
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