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Name: Kara Pernice
Occupation: Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group
Country: USA
Total Questions: 7
Total Answers: 4

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Kara Pernice profile

What Yoosk members think about

Honest	Yes	1	No	0
Clear	Yes	1	No	0
Well informed	Yes	1	No	0
Inspiring	Yes	1	No	0
Consistent	Yes	1	No	0
Well intentioned	Yes	1	No	0

Answered Questions

Erica111 asked Kara Pernice: "If websites were designed better, do you really think more older people would use the Internet?"
Kara Pernice answers: "Yes! I absolutely think so. I truly believe that because there were so many people in our research study and just seniors that I’ve talked to who have almost a desperate feeling about it. “I tried to ..." Show more»" Yes! I absolutely think so. I truly believe that because there were so many people in our research study and just seniors that I’ve talked to who have almost a desperate feeling about it. “I tried to use it and I feel like an idiot, and it’s just not for me!” - I can’t tell you how many people have just said that to me, even people not in my study. If you have an experience with something and you’re a smart person and you truly try to do it but you can’t do it, it’s not something you want to go back to. So there are people who have their computers that their kids gave them sitting on their desk and they are never going to touch them again except maybe to send email and that’s not even through a Web program in some cases so I absolutely think if people start to use the Web and they try hard and they give it a few chances and they can actually get something done, they’ll continue to use it, they’ll try harder, they’ll use it more…absolutely! "Show less«
Is this a good answer? 4 0
0 comment | Topic: Media | Email to friends | Dec 12 2007 7:09:48 PM
shanas2077 asked Kara Pernice: "If everybody built websites that followed the World Wide Web Consortium's standards for creating accessible websites, would this also cover any potential problems that older users, who are now using the..." Show more »"If everybody built websites that followed the World Wide Web Consortium's standards for creating accessible websites, would this also cover any potential problems that older users, who are now using the internet, face or are there other considerations that need to be factored in?" Show less »
Kara Pernice answers: "I think we could add a few more things to it. To be quite honest, I’m not familiar with every single guideline that the W3C is proposing today so I might mention some things that are on this list but ..." Show more»" I think we could add a few more things to it. To be quite honest, I’m not familiar with every single guideline that the W3C is proposing today so I might mention some things that are on this list but I recall there were things like – when you’re thinking about a senior, what I try to do is to think about all the more severe usability issues that people have, or accessibility challenges I suppose, and then work back from there to issues similar to those but not as severe. A senior might not actually be blind but he may have lower vision. He might not even have severe low vision – he might still be able to drive a car but he has a little low vision or his memory is just decreasing a little bit or his motor skills…if you have arthritis you aren’t going to have the exact same problems as a person who has cerebral palsy but you are going to have a little bit of that problem. For example, the proximity of button, having a button that relates to a command be close to it so a person doesn’t really have to work to move across what can be a very long place, which is a web page! If you have trouble moving a mouse, it can feel like running a marathon. And contrast is something we all of course know about. And things like links – making links that actually look like links I think is very important and helping to distinguish what is a link and not a link. I think mostly for seniors though is to just try and make the websites incredibly easy to use and to focus more on the problems I see new users having. So I think there are more things we can do. The real point is do something that isn’t as expensive as some people think it is, which is do some basic usability studies with seniors, watch them use your website. If you’re not already doing that, you’re going to learn so much. And they’re fun too! Those are my favourite studies, studies with older people, because when you finish the studies they break out the stories and start to talk like human beings and they’re really cool people a lot of them. I mean sure there are some crotchety ones, like there can be mean young people and mean old people, but a lot of the older people have some very interesting stories to tell and it makes it a lot of fun. "Show less«
Is this a good answer? 1 0
0 comment | Topic: Media | Email to friends | Dec 12 2007 7:05:54 PM
bonzoid asked Kara Pernice: "With the baby boomer generation on the brink of becoming a tidal wave of silver surfers, we should be seeing a vast number of web users already web/cyber literate. Should we not be addressing a wider ..." Show more »"With the baby boomer generation on the brink of becoming a tidal wave of silver surfers, we should be seeing a vast number of web users already web/cyber literate. Should we not be addressing a wider age demographic in regard to accessabilty, use and standards? Do you think it would be useful to start with the oldest surfers discussing these issues with the next gerneration down, the baby boomers who take the web for granted, but have yet to completely experience the challenges of growing older? Like other cultural traditions handed down, maybe we need listen to our elders and discuss with the next generation in order to discover the next enhancemets that will make the world wide web and even more powerful tool available to even more people both young and old?" Show less »
Kara Pernice answers: "Absolutely! I mean there are of course the kinds of moral issues where we want to serve all populations but maybe if we take an even more practical approach - as this population grows, they’re going ..." Show more»" Absolutely! I mean there are of course the kinds of moral issues where we want to serve all populations but maybe if we take an even more practical approach - as this population grows, they’re going to have more money and disposable income and if we want to advertise to people and sell on the internet, if you do it well for people as they age, you’re certainly just going to do better as a business and your presence on the Web needs to reflect that you actually consider this group or they won’t be able to use your website. Or they’ll rebel against it if it’s bad. So beyond it being a nice thing to do, it’s a smart business decision to design your websites to meet the needs of people over the age of 65. "Show less«
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0 comment | Topic: Media | Email to friends | Dec 12 2007 7:37:48 PM
emflem asked Kara Pernice: "Web 2.0 has heralded the age of user-generated content on the web. Practically anyone can publish web pages with little knowledge of web usability and web standards. How much of a problem do you think..." Show more »"Web 2.0 has heralded the age of user-generated content on the web. Practically anyone can publish web pages with little knowledge of web usability and web standards. How much of a problem do you think this is for moving towards a web that takes an older population into account?" Show less »
Kara Pernice answers: "I think that all the tools - the older tools and the newer Web 2.0 tools - in every case the designer has the ability to do good with it or do bad with it. And taking any tool out of the box and just ..." Show more»" I think that all the tools - the older tools and the newer Web 2.0 tools - in every case the designer has the ability to do good with it or do bad with it. And taking any tool out of the box and just using it in its generic state is usually not going to be easy. We find this with intranet portal software, we find this with Flash, we find this with Ajax, we find this with everything. You have to think about the known design recommendations, the standards that you’ve known about for many, many years, and apply them to any new tools which is why when people ask me is usability ever going to go away in terms of a discipline or a department, I don’t have a fear, let’s put it this way, that I won’t have a job, because as technologies change, we have the opportunity to do good or bad designs with them and any time we encounter a new technology, we usually start off with bad designs. Think about Flash when it first came out – all we saw were these big spinning things when you entered a website that weren’t helpful. But now if you look around, you can see some really nice implementations of Flash, applications that really do a service for the users and for the website itself. So I think the same thing is happening with these newer tools. As we see, some people are really starting to use them in a very usable way for everyone including seniors. More often, I think they’re just getting their wings. "Show less«
Is this a good answer? 0 0
0 comment | Topic: Media | Email to friends | Dec 12 2007 7:08:37 PM