Greetings. I'm seeking anecdotes regarding the use of Web services (e.g. as provided by Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) by "older" users. Keeping in mind that our memories, vision, and other key attributes typically begin to degrade by the time we reach our 20s, I'm not specifying any particular age ranges here.

Please email whatever you can to:

experiences@vortex.com

I'm especially interested in any frustrations related to Web services that you might feel -- or have noted with relatives, friends, co-workers, or any other persons -- as you and/or they have inevitably aged.

Particularly relevant stories include age-related experiences regarding what seems to work well and what causes the most problems when you're using these systems, or when you're trying to help others use these systems (either in-person, over the phone, or via various remote desktop environments), and so on.

Experiences of the "elderly" in any aspect and how ever you wish to define this would be especially appreciated. I believe this category to be of critical importance. This rapidly growing group increasingly must deal with Web services to conduct routine affairs (for example, email or other Web-based contacts with relatives or businesses, government communications, and so on.) This is also a group that could benefit greatly from calendar systems, person-to-person chat and video systems, search services as memory aids, and social networking environments (particularly given the social isolation that is so typically part and parcel of advancing age) -- if and only if these persons are able to use these services effectively.

I will treat all details you send as confidential unless you indicate otherwise, but the more details you can provide the more useful your information will be. Ages, background information about physical and mental states, and level of technical familiarity are some of the particularly relevant factors.

Also, information regarding the particular aspects of these services that you or those you assist find particularly problematic, would be very much in focus -- issues with fonts, backgrounds, user interface designs, stability vs. changes in interface and operational models -- and how these users are affected by these and similar issues.

Anyway, you get the idea. Again, please send whatever you feel comfortable with to:

experiences@vortex.com

Thanks very much. Take care, all.

--Lauren--