Saturday, June 27, 2020

Vision changes with aging

This is to support a design note that users should be able to change representations they see and not have one forced upon them. Things like the wrong size fonts or colors with poor contrast begin to make things unreadable for some. People differ, not just from one another, but even from themselves at different points in time. One size does not fit all. 

As we age, our vision changes. This describes what, in my case, actually changed. 
I had fairly exceptional vision when I was young. Even by the time I was in my thirties it was more acute than normal. When I was on the job as a coder in those early years, I could not get the font small enough. Being able to view very long lines without wrapping made code easier to understand. 
By the time I was is in my forties, my vision had become noticeably worse. I could operate with normal font sizes, but could no longer see the smaller ones. 
By the time I was well into my fifties, I needed to be able to adjust displays to larger font sizes. It was becoming to tedious to use normal sizes. 
Now that I am in my sixties, I find that I can manage with reasonably larger than normal font sizes when I am fresh and my eyes are well rested. As they tire I begin to need unreasonably large font sizes. Eventually, I have to call it a day sooner than I would like because of problems with my vision.  

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