Are guidelines enough? An introduction to designing Web sites accessible to older people

Abstract

As the Web becomes more integral to day-to-day life, there is a danger that many older people will be excluded if their access needs are not considered by content designers. Although accessibility guidelines for designers are available, experience shows that these guidelines have not been successful enough in producing Web sites accessible to older people. In this paper, the shortcomings of relying solely on accessibility guidelines are reviewed, and several ideas are proposed for encouraging a more holistic approach to accessibility.