Hur platt kan det vara?

: En studie om seniorers förståelse av skeumorfism och platt design inom e-hälsa

Abstract

The vast progress of digitization creates problems for the seniors who find it hard to keep up with modern technology development. At the same time, the Swedish government has set itself the goal of digitizing health care by 2025. In connection with the trend of using flat design in digital platforms, the situation of seniors is further complicated and may have a negative effect in expanding the digital divide.

Previous research shows that the style of the flat design is more difficult to understand than the traditional, skeuomorphic design previously used, as flat design lacks affordances. The aim of this thesis has been to investigate whether flat design is more difficult for seniors to understand than traditional skeuomorphic design, as well as how the design principle affordance could solve the problem of understanding flat design.

The thesis has been guided by the question: How are seniors' understanding of flat design compared to traditional design in the context of websites and what significance does affordance have to support their understanding? To answer the question, a quantitative questionnaire survey and a qualitative observation study have been conducted to investigate the variables of the question based on previous theories. The result shows that affordance does not seem to affect how seniors understand a design interface. On the other hand, indications suggest that design principles such as visual clues, or signifiers, are important to consider when designing for a senior audience design.