Use True Minimalism in Age-Friendly Design
The concept of age-friendly design (part of inclusive design) is gaining increasing traction as the global population aging which will exceed half a billion by2050.
More and more large enterprises begin to systemize and standardize age-friendly design. However, how many of these companies genuinely invite elderly people to participate in design test and validation?
The definition of “old” often varies by country, depending on their unique stages of development. For this article, our focus is specifically on age-friendly design in China at 2025.
This piece was sparked by the following videdo. The youtuber (up主) invited testers of different ages to use and experience “elderly mode” on various smartphone brands. What became glaringly clear was that when elderly people are genuinely brought into the design test and validation process, even leading tech companies like Apple and Xiaomi demonstrate designs significantly disconnected from actual user needs.
Perhaps the answer to truly effective age-friendly design lies in minimalism.
The following insights are what I learnt from teaching my 78-year-old grandma to use WeChat and Tiktok(抖音) as a UX designer.
The insights consist of 4 design principles, 2 warnings and a few design rules.
Hope this articles will help designers deliver better elderly mode/age-friendly design in the future.
Design Principle 1: See/Hear Clearly (看/听得清)
As people age, declining vision and hearing significantly limit the phone using experience. Common challenges for elderly people in China include presbyopia, Cataract (150 million), and hearing impairment (200 million).
In this context, ensuring users can see and hear clearly is the most fundamental and critical aspect of age-friendly design.
· Different font size for different age group
Age: 60–69 years old | Font Size: 20pt
Age: 70–79 years old | Font Size: 25pt
Age: 80+ years old | Font Size: 30pt
Reference: aligns with WeChat care mode、Elderly mode、 iOS/Android, practical implementation
· Encourage the use of assistive hearing devices, especially as products like AirPods now offer hearing aid functionalities.
Simply increase output volume usually leads to public sound pollution and annoyance.
Using earphone with hearing aid function can largely solve this issues if possible
· Extend display times for feedback components like “toast” messages.
The elderlys’ reading speed(less than 180 Chinese characters in one minute) is considerably slower than that of digital natives. Often, a toast message disappears before they’ve fully read the information, prompting them to repeat the action.
Similarly, the speed of voice playback should also be appropriately slowed.
Design Principle 2: Understand What’s Seen/Heard（看/听得懂）
Smartphones and the internet emerged in China in the very early of the 21st century. However, the current generation of the elders was born before these technologies existed (1945–1960).
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For them, understanding the current internet language is akin to learning an entirely new language and tool, a challenge compounded by the natural decline in learning ability that comes with aging.
[Warning] Eliminate Icons, eliminate icons, eliminate icons
It’s not about using fewer icons; it’s about not using them at all. This might sound extreme, but based on the video’s tests and my grandmother’s experience, expecting seniors aged 65–80 to correctly interpret an icon’s meaning is like asking them to learn a new foreign language, no matter how “intuitive” the design.
Icons sometimes carry historical context. For example, the “save” icon stems from 3.5-inch floppy disks — a concept foreign to those who didn’t live through that era.
For Chinese seniors aged 65–80 (born 1945–1960), their youth offered no exposure to computer/internet culture, let alone the icons we take for granted.
Even after 2010, many of them remained primarily connected via television, with the internet often feeling like an exclusive world.
Therefore, when designing for seniors, use direct, clear text instead of icons.
· Use More Direct Content
Avoid specialized vocabulary, jargon, and trending internet slang in age-friendly design. The vast majority of Chinese seniors will not correctly understand these terms.
Action-oriented language is superior to descriptive language. For instance, “话费充值” is far more easily understood than “手机充值” When it comes to adjusting font size, Apple’s “Accessibility Text辅助功能字体” could simply be “Make text bigger把字调大” — colloquial and easy-to-understand phrasing is always better.
This is especially crucial in shopping apps, where enticing, often deceptive, copy is used to drive users to secondary pages and boost conversion rates.
[Warning] No Advertisements, No Advertisements, No Advertisements
The most severe problem is the proliferation of pop-up ads and other highly commercial, misleading UI elements. These overtly commercial intrusions severely undermine test tasks.
Nearly 100% of seniors participating in tests fall into these commercial UI traps, ending up on e-commerce apps like Pinduoduo or Taobao, thus fulfilling the platforms’ KPIs for jumps, retention, and clicks.
When combined with commercially biased, misleading text, a test task intended to “buy vegetables” can easily result in “buying slippers on Pinduoduo.”
Design Principle 3: Easy to Use
The current domestic app ecosystem is unfortunately rife with traps and confusing interfaces. While merchants aim to enrich user experience with new interaction modes, for seniors, the most fundamental usability is paramount. Reducing learning curves is also vital for encouraging smartphone adoption among the elderly.
· Simplify Processes
We observed a sharp decline in task completion rates when a test task involved more than 4–5 clicks. Seniors get lost in lengthy processes, forget their initial objective, and lose confidence in using the app.
When designing for seniors, aim to limit the number of clicks in a task flow to less than 4 times.
· Single Interaction Modality — Clicking
Seniors often have less agile finger dexterity than younger users. Interaction methods with low error tolerance, such as swiping and long-pressing, should ideally be avoided.
For example, on Android, the “back” gesture (swiping right from the left edge) highly overlaps with the hot zone for switching apps, making accidental touches extremely common.
Design Principle 4: Love
Offer seniors patience and time. Everyone ages, and when our generation grows old, new technologies will inevitably challenge us. We might feel just as lost and overwhelmed. Without genuine care and empathy, even the best product is just a lifeless iron box.
· Integrate caring functions like “Family Help” or “Remote Assistance.”
While the aforementioned design principles significantly improve the smartphone experience for seniors, the most effective support often comes from the help and guidance of family members .
· Continuously Redefine “Age Group”
· Continuously Redefine “Age- friendly Design”
If you need any design facilitation for age-friendly design ,please feel free to contact me through leo19951003@gmail.com or +86 13817650558
