Since I started this blog, I have been frustrated with the small font. So, today, I have had enough! I decided to learn to code in order to increase the font size so that more people can read the site. The font is a little small for me, too, and I’m only 33 so I don’t think it’s due to age-related vision changes. Well, coding did not go so well and I didn’t want to pay to upgrade my site as I am not making money off of it or promoting a business. In the end, I decided to go with another design theme that already has larger font.
Great, so now I have larger font and hopefully everyone can read my posts, at least better than before. But, with the new theme, I have to manually change the colors of hyperlinks. This means, that if I don’t want to go and change the color of the text each time I put a link to another website or post (and I don’t), it’s a little tricker for people to know that it is even a link! I try to put some leading text, like “read more here,” but I must say I am frustrated that WordPress.com can’t accommodate readers of all ages and ability levels without the author paying for it (and I’m not even sure you can after you buy their premium package).
In further trying to make my site accessible for anyone who would want to visit, I used a few web sites that have some good information worth sharing with all of you. I had also made a blog post on Errorless Learning and design of technologies for aging adults. This was part of the work for the start-up I was involved in for the past year. That post doesn’t necessarily fit in with the Dementia Adventure theme, but I will likely be posting it here anyway, at least to get the information out to the public.
In the meantime, please take a look at the handful of websites I link below. I hope you get some inspiration for updating your website as well!
4 Easy Steps to Make Your Site More Usable to Older People
National Institute on Aging: Making your website senior friendly
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative:
Web accessibility and older people: meeting the needs of ageing web users
Developing websites for older people: how web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 applies
You can also find some great information on Slideshare.
Doctor Dementia and the Dementia Adventure 