* A Website that is user friendly
* Contains easy navigation
* Has a clean interface, uncluttered text
* Uses professional graphics and designed with the maturing web user in mind.

Remember, these users are often well-educated, know what they want and are not afraid to learn new things and make online purchases. You can't fool them with cheap design and cheap graphics. There is just too much competition out there.

Why should you want to make your site Boomer Friendly?

Simply put, Boomers have money to spend and you DO NOT want to miss out on this. Besides, ALL of your users will find your site to be a more pleasant experience.



As maturing online shoppers have to adapt to mental and physical changes--as retailers it's up to you to change and or adapt to the growing aging population, or you could potentially loose ready-to-spend customers.

* Increase your font size

* Use White background. White Backgrounds, look professional and clean. White background and black text is an all time favorite for people with low vision.

* Stay away from image backgrounds unless they are light and or semi-transparent or don't interfere with your overall design.

* Use alt tags in your images.

Add ALT tags to your images to make sure search engines recognize all the content on your site. Better for you and ALT tags make your site more accessible to visually impaired users using text readers. Text readers can't read images, but the alt text will be shown instead.

* Cut down on the animations, as the flickers can be disturbing to the maturing eyes.

* Stay away from the overuse of Flash.
While flash is a powerful software tool, and I use it--if you must use Flash, stick with a small image size, maybe 200x 200 and place away from your main or important content. If a user does not have the player installed it will make your site appear incomplete, or "broken"

Code your flash so that if the user doesn't have the Player installed they can do so, effortlessly. Since Video flash is appearing everywhere, you might want to include one that is relevant or targeted to your site topic.

If your site is about Cat's, a nice cat Video would more than likely keep that potential customer on your site. You can get free Videos at Google, Youtube and Metcalf, there are more but these are the most popular, as of this writing.

*Try not to "talk" text your site to death.

Make your point phrases short, use good grammar and language. If you need to further explain a product, create another page, with a clear link that says: "Read more about this", this way you can give your users all the information he/she wants without crowding your important features.

* Make sure your users can get what they want fast.

* Don't crowd your pages, keep adequate "white space".

A congested site, will appear confusing and too much text appears to be information overload.

* Finally, advertise your site

Using Audio. If you use audio, try recording something simple and engaging, perhaps:

"Hello and welcome to our website we're having a sale this month on gloves at 50% off. Follow the link that says "Gloves". Please enjoy your stay and come back again soon."

Make sure you put a caption on your site to direct the user to your audio.

* Remember, our Boomer audience grew up on manners, so "please" and "thank you" are in order.

Audio ads are an attractive useful feature. If your visitor has vision problems audio can help lead them in the direction that you want to show off.

Some of your visitors may have arm/hand mobility issues, so including an area on your site where visitors can view website/pages without clicking
(Auto Web Viewer) would be very, very effective and your users will love you for it.


Check out this "Baby Boomer Friendly" Site