Designing a Website for Different Age Groups – A Bird’s Eye View

The fact that online visitors have become technologically savvy has made it even more essential to cater to your niche audience when you develop a website. Regardless of whether you are building specific sites for kids, adults, or elderly people will determine to a great extent the success of your website, which essentially means reduced bounce rates and drawing greater digital footfall. In this article, there are two topics that have been dealt with under the following sub-heads, namely,

• Why age-specific website designing matters?
• Website designs for different categories of web audiences

Why age-specific website designing matters?

Age specific website designing definitely matters for the following reasons.

1. First of all, you would like to know their main objectives of visiting the website

2.To find out how familiar they are with browsing and navigating websites

3. Whether or not they are able to access the websites that they find useful from among a wide array of websites that address the same topic they are looking for

4. You will also be able to know their emotional response pertaining to a particular website that you intend to design for their age group

If you are aware of the age group of your target audience, it really becomes easier for you to design the website. If your client has not defined any age group requirement, it is best to develop a website that will appeal universally to all age groups. Alternatively, you can also get information with the help of Google Analytics that offers extensive information about demography.

There are two other notable reasons for which you must build a website keeping in mind the needs of the clients. For instance, if you are building a website that does not have anything for the elderly, you are depriving this particular group of people from navigating your website. And you would definitely not like to treat elderly people in this manner.

The other reason is if you are not offering anything for the youngsters, they might take an aversion for your website and this can be detrimental because it could shape their perception in an adverse manner, which could force them to have a different idea altogether about web related services and products.

Website designs for different categories of web audiences

Ideally, when a website is built it should be done so keeping in mind the different age groups, but it is also important to keep in mind the computing capacity of the audience.

For children

These days from a very early age children have an idea about computing and their skills are unparalleled as compared to a 10 year old of the yesteryears. One of the biggest advantages of designing for children is that they don’t have a goal in mind. They want entertainment, have fun, and most importantly should be able to learn something while having fun.

There used to be many adult websites that had cartoon images for casinos. These should however, not be confused with children websites. However, one saving grace is that gambling companies in the UK are no longer allowed to use cartoon images for marketing. This applies for the online casinos licensed in UK.

Websites for the disabled

These days more and more websites are being developed keeping in mind the requirement of the specially challenged individuals. For instance, individuals with poor eyesight have provision to surf the website. As such, you will come across websites that are regulated so as to offer special visual images for such people.

Websites for the teens

Once your child becomes a teen, you have to worry less about their motor and sensory skill development. Unlike younger children that have less patience, the teenagers have more patience and are bound to stay glued to a website for longer. As such, the content should be informative, must add value to their knowledge bank, and most importantly, the user interface should be friendly and easy to navigate. It will be more information rich and one that can help them with their curriculum.

Website for adults

When it comes to building website for adults, you might come across many such as alcohol, cigarette, and casino based websites (just to name a few). These are strictly adult websites that should not be accessed by children or teens. So, keep tab on their online activities. Usability is the USP.

Website for senior people

The websites must be engaging and let them enjoy the content like games of chess or reasoning. Most importantly, since most of the seniors might be accessing the virtual world for the first time, the navigation should be easy and the user interface must be engaging and appealing.

Last but not the least, it is important to remember that there is no dearth of information on the web. And the web designer must build the website in a manner that he can do justice to the target audience of all age groups.