Guidelines for Designing Social Networking Sites for Older Adults: A Systematic Review with Thematic Synthesis
Amira Ghenai, Philips Ayeni, Jing Yu, Robin Cohen, Karyn Moffatt · 2023 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3615662
Summary
This systematic review synthesizes design recommendations for social networking sites (SNS) targeting older adults, addressing a critical gap: despite being the fastest-growing demographic on platforms like Facebook, older adults face numerous barriers to adoption and use. The researchers employed thematic synthesis to analyze 25 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2023, drawn from five databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Compendex, Inspec, IEEE Xplore) plus Google Scholar. The review responds to three challenges that have limited commercial adoption of research findings: (1) recommendations are scattered across publications, making them difficult for developers to find and follow; (2) studies examine heterogeneous SNS systems and features, leading to seemingly conflicting guidance; and (3) existing guidelines lack sensitivity to the diversity within the older adult population. Most included studies (19 of 25) focused on Facebook, with others examining platforms like WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, LinkedIn, and custom prototypes like TapTag, SeniorBook, and TreeIt. The studies employed predominantly mixed-methods designs (52%), with others using qualitative (40%) or quantitative (8%) approaches. Research was conducted across 12 countries, with the USA (33%), Taiwan (12.5%), and Portugal (8.3%) most represented. Sample sizes ranged from 4 to 202 participants, with age thresholds for "older adult" varying inconsistently from 55+ to 71+.
Key findings
The synthesis produced ten cohesive design guidelines for SNS accessibility: 1. **Text formatting**: Use appropriate fonts (minimum 2.8mm), sufficient contrast, and provide easy customization of font size and color. 2. **Non-text content**: Supplement text with images, videos, and audio while ensuring these elements are themselves accessible with labels and adequate sizing. 3. **Navigation and layout**: Implement simple page layouts, consistent designs across pages, clearly labeled buttons and icons, generous spacing, and home buttons for easy orientation. 4. **Help and support**: Provide online help, clear error messages with corrective actions, trial periods, walk-through features, and instructions that facilitate learning. 5. **Social connections**: Support progressive relationship building with features like auto-suggest friends, mood displays, common albums, and context-rich friend requests. 6. **Privacy protection**: Make privacy the default setting, provide clear data usage explanations, enable selective sharing, limit exposure to strangers and advertisements, and offer opt-in rather than opt-out sharing. 7. **Alternate modalities**: Support voice commands, speech-to-text, single-touch interactions, gestures, and TV-based access to reduce reliance on complex touch interactions. 8. **Understandable terminology**: Use language that fits older adults' semantic fields, avoid jargon (hashtag, DM, tagging), and provide keyword filtering for content. 9. **Cognitive accessibility**: Minimize action sequences, explain consequences of actions, remove auto-disappearing content, and provide consistent status feedback. 10. **Personalization**: Support cultural differences, communication preferences, profile customization, and education about SNS features.
Relevance
This review provides practitioners with a consolidated, evidence-based resource for making SNS more accessible to older adults—a critical need given that social media platforms have become increasingly inaccessible over time despite growing research attention. The ten guidelines synthesize dispersed recommendations into actionable design requirements. A key insight is the heterogeneity within the "older adult" demographic. The review highlights that recommendations sometimes conflict because different sub-populations have different needs: for example, some studies recommend auto-suggest friend features while others warn these expose users to unwanted contacts. Designers must understand their specific target users rather than treating older adults monolithically. The heavy focus on Facebook (19 of 25 studies) limits generalizability to other platforms, and the review notes that only 7% of Twitter users and 13% of Instagram users are 65+. The authors advocate for progressive enhancement strategies ensuring core functionality works across devices and connection speeds, accommodating socioeconomic diversity. Privacy emerges as a paramount concern—nearly 60% of older Facebook users felt privacy protections were inadequate. For practitioners, this review consolidates a decade of research into implementable guidance while highlighting where additional research is needed.
Tags: older adults · social networking · social media · systematic review · design guidelines · Facebook · accessibility · inclusive design
Standards referenced: WCAG 2.0