Usability Analysis on online Social Networks for the elderly

Online social networks are becoming familiar to an increas-ing number of people. Services provided by online social network websites, such as file sharing, chatting fora, and dis-cussion about interests, have largely improved the quality of people’s life. However, the group which gains major benefits from this newly flourishing technology is the young, while online social networks typically exclude the elderly. One reason for this is that unlike the young, the elderly find it dif-ficult to adapt to new innovations. As the average lifespan of people extends and the average number of children people have diminishes, the share of the elderly of total population is steadily on the rise. Senior people, especially those af-ter retirement, are facing inevitable mental and physical de-terioration together with loneliness. However, one solution here may be to enroll them as members of social networks. In spite of the wide use of high technology, the Internet re-mains alien to many seniors. Therefore, it is significant to analyze the usability of social networks from senior people’s point-of-view in order to enable them to use social network-ing tools to improve their quality of life. In this paper, I first review the concept of social networks, and its significance to senior citizens, after which I pro-pose and analyze usability factors assoaciated with social networks for the elderly. This paper continues with several successful solutions to the usability problems faced by se-niors. This is followed by a case study on the usability of three online social networks (OSNs) specially designed for seniors