Is the internet prejudiced against the elderly?

[vasa1]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/23/internet-is-becoming-unreadable-because-of-a-trend-towards-light/

The internet is becoming unreadable because of a trend towards lighter and thinner fonts, making it difficult for the elderly or visually-impaired to see words clearly ...
Where text used to be bold and dark, which contrasted well with predominantly white backgrounds, now many websites are switching to light greys or blues for their type.
He found a ‘widespread movement’ to reduce the contrast between the words and the background, with tech giants Apple, Google and Twitter all altering their typography

[Perfect Storm]

Sounds more like conspiracy theory to me. I think the font is a trend more than anything.

[vasa1]

Sounds more like conspiracy theory to me. I think the font is a trend more than anything.
A conspiracy against the elderly or against the grey text on white background web page designers? That it's popular is beyond doubt ;)

[Dennis N]

I'm not elderly or visually impared, but it bothers me too. Not just on web sites - some well-known distros also use default themes that shade the font color from black to gray, or white to gray, depending on how you think of it. I see that in default terminal font color quite often.

[metalbiker]

um, i don't think it's a prejudice towards the elderly at all. some design trends tend to take over and everybody gets on board because maybe it looks good and it's easy on hardware/software resources....who knows. let's not think about it being a prejudice but just a design trend.

[Irihapeti]

I'd call it a stupid design trend where people haven't fully considered how it affects everyone.

I suspect that the same applies to colour choices - those with colourblindness get overlooked.

[SeijiSensei]

I suspect that the same applies to colour choices - those with colourblindness get overlooked.
You're the first person I've seen mention the problem of designing for people with colorblindness. I'm slightly red/green deficient, meaning I tend to see some shades of those colors as more brown or grey than someone with no such deficiency. I've gone to any number of pages where the designer has chosen some color scheme ranging from red to green, and I cannot read it. I sometimes highlight the entire text with Ctrl-a to make it legible. Many fewer people are blue/yellow colorblind; I'm sure that's one reason why blue was made the standard for hyperlinks. Yellow, unfortunately, often doesn't look very good when used with text.

Now that I'm past retirement I, too, would prefer somewhat larger fonts with thicker lines. However the easiest solution is simply to zoom the page. Red/green discrimination has no such work-around.

[sonicwind]

I'm not elderly but I definately have problems with this. I have far from perfect vision. I have to do special orders for all my eyeglasses. Dennis is right, it's not just websites, but distros and DE's too. I also wish the dock indicators weren't so tiny. I'm not colorblind, but like SeijiSensei, I also highlight text on a daily basis to try and read things. I just want more contrast.

I watched the GNOME 3.26 preview video on linuxscoop since Unity is coming to an end. On the pages where you see your apps and descriptions, it looks like I will have a difficult time reading them. I can't make them out on the preview in full screen mode.

I've thought about asking you guys how we can bring this issue to the attention of Ubuntu, GNOME, etc. File a bug?

[yoshii]

A lot of conformists copy MS Windows GUI design. It's really awful.
But I personally like a lot of dark high contrast GUI designs.
Thank goodness for customizeable inferfaces... one of the main reasons why I use Linux.

[mastablasta]

black on white is actually quite bad for the eyes. it strains the eyes.

best one is bright yellow on black.

"solarized" themes offer less strain fo rthe eyes and are easier to read. montior are not really made with reading in mind. if oyu work 8h a day behind a monitor and then mor eat home, it becomes a pain reading black on white.

fonts are another matter. i too appreciate thicker and wider ones. i can't see that well. Verdana 12pt or Arial 12pt are my choice when typing replies. i just hope customers don't mind what some perceive big letters, but to me it's just easy to read and less eye strain. i also setup the desktop with black or dark background. wish i could do it for emails as well.

[Rocky_Bennett]

I'm in my 60s and I have not seen any issues with the font or type on the Internet lately. Maybe I am visiting the wrong websites.

[mastablasta]

Maybe I am visiting the wrong websites.

not wrong, just not "modern". :P

[kurt18947]

black on white is actually quite bad for the eyes. it strains the eyes.

best one is bright yellow on black.

"solarized" themes offer less strain fo rthe eyes and are easier to read. montior are not really made with reading in mind. if oyu work 8h a day behind a monitor and then mor eat home, it becomes a pain reading black on white.

fonts are another matter. i too appreciate thicker and wider ones. i can't see that well. Verdana 12pt or Arial 12pt are my choice when typing replies. i just hope customers don't mind what some perceive big letters, but to me it's just easy to read and less eye strain. i also setup the desktop with black or dark background. wish i could do it for emails as well.

I don't spend much time in a terminal but amber or orange type on a black background works pretty well for me. Do the 'modern' trends in web design cater to the phone/tablet small screen world?

[sdsurfer]

Yeah design an illegible website, no one even bats an eye.

Mention WACG and everyone loses their minds.

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/

[lisati]

I find that black text with a white background usually works well for me. Gray on grey doesn't work so well.........

[sports fan Matt]

I've been legally blind since birth. There are times where I go into restaurants and shops where I can't read simple menus. I gravitate towards dark themes and menus (with my Ubuntu) and like others have said, black text on white works well.

[ulysses77]

No, I don't believe so, I believe that it caters to the young. I believe that it does so because that helps gain and secure market shares and frankly the new generations are where the money's at.

[HermanAB]

Err... Any half decent browser can override the web site fonts.

BTW, 'the elderly' pretty much designed and built the internet.

[vasa1]

Err... Any half decent browser can override the web site fonts.

BTW, 'the elderly' pretty much designed and built the internet.
Err... yes. So there's no need for any sort of talk about accessibility standards :)

[1fallen]

I remember a few friends here poking fun at me for this very thing.:D
If you don't mind an extension for Firefox and Seamonkey there is S3.Translator by Oleksandr
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/s3google-translator/
Just high lite the text and choose play.
Also useful for a Translator.
Well it looks like other Browsers are supported also.
Cheers

[The Techy]

The internet no! But you need to look at the demographics for a site and then match up the intended userbase. For instance gaming site will have less 60+ year old users than say age.uk https://www.ageuk.org.uk. Age.uk uses clear, large fonts and the design also contributes to the legibility of any site.

There is of course the W3C Accessibility protocols which are intended for ensuring that all users have access to the web. I insist any dev working for me understands and applies (where possible/appropriate) some of the principles laid out by the W3C

[irv]

I just read through all the posts in this thread and the text is black on a grey background I didn't have any problem reading it, and I have bad vision, and I will be 80 on my next Birthday. I don't think the Internet is prejudiced against me.
A few years ago I was designing Web pages and programming. I still dabble a little, but mostly just surf the web like most. There are web pages that are hard to read because the designer/programmer made it that way because he/she wanted to do it. I don't think they were thinking, "Hey, I am going to do it this way to tick some old guy off." No, they did it because they might have thought it was cool. I don't think anyone is prejudiced against me.
Programmers design their pages to draw people not repel them

[mastablasta]

So here is just an example of what the OP was talking about. as you can see the field names are nearly the smae coloru as background.

this wasn't the only thing. their instructions were also of similar colour. luckily it was text, so i just highlighted it to be able to even read what they want me to do.

oh it's a simple gallery page for us to order the photos they made of our kids at the nursery.

but it is from a professional photographer. it seems she does it all over town. i am the photos she makes are good, but the gallery page to order them is really difficult to read.

[QIII]

I don't see that as prejudice against the elderly so much as just plain awful site design.

[vasa1]

I don't see that as prejudice against the elderly so much as just plain awful site design.But then it wouldn't be click-bait ;)

[mastablasta]

but there are many sites designed like so these days, and this is what OP meant that maybe certain internet sites are designed against a group of people. They are not against a group but they do have too many pastel colours. i find it strange that no one noticed that when they designed the page. they must have a very sharp eye to see the text. and elderly often have sight issues. so while the site was not designed against any group, some groups will have a problem with such sights sooner that other.

then let's not even start with the 9pt fonts...

point is there really are some designs that don't have any good contrasts and can be difficult to read.

also i am still no sure who though black on bright white is really such a good idea. :)

[Perfect Storm]

But then it wouldn't be click-bait ;)

You should be banned for that. :popcorn:

[smookinjoe]

i'm not elderly but I definately have problems with this.

[uRock]

It's a great conversation, but I have yet to see a site worth attempting to read that is hard to read.

I sometimes wonder how many people, older or younger, know that Ctrl+ and Ctrl- can be used to zoom in and out on websites.

As or the sites using garbage coloring, find the Contact Us link and tell them how you feel. Personally, if I open a site and there's a scripted pop-up within the page, then I immediately close the page. If you are going to block my view, then you must not want me to read your page.