Larger font for Older Americans

[mebates]

We often receive requests for printed materials with an Older American audience. The client would like all type to be a minimum of 14 pt for these materials. Can we design an alternate print type hierarchy for Older Americans?

There is a Consumer Advisory for early April that would need this new hierarchy.

[nataliafitzgerald]

@mebates - I am in support of developing this but have representatives from Older Americans seen our body copy in 14 point (or are they pulling out this number sight unseen)? Do you have time to develop this or would you like it to be assigned to another designer?

[mebates]

They are pulling that number sight unseen. I could probably get started on in the week of March 30, but if someone could hop on it sooner, that would be awesome.

[elizbond]

We have a project that is moving this need forward a lot sooner. @JenniferHoran can you give us some guidance on this standard for Avenir?

[JenniferHoran]

I'm not familiar with Avenier, but in general 10pt font and lower is small, 12 is normal, and 14pt and larger is large font. So going with 14pt font for this is a good move. We can test the font in 14pt for contrast.

[JenniferHoran]

I prefer Tahoma myself personally, but I know we have to stick to the style guide

[elizbond]

@klocraft @nataliafitzgerald @kokkinidisg

I talked to the Office of Older Americans and here is some research they had on hand.

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There is a good article focused on health related educational materials that you may find helpful. It starts with tips about writing content, but it goes on to discuss designing fonts in publications for older Americans. http://www.nia.nih.gov/health/publication/making-your-printed-health-materials-senior-friendly

I also find this article helpful on web design, especially the section on research and older adults that references AARP - “Understanding the Needs of Older Adults Through Research” -
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/05/designing-for-senior-citizens-organizing-your-work-schedule.php

[Dnpizarro]

@designlanguage can you let us know how the larger font is working out for some of your Older American materials?

[Dnpizarro]

@klocraft can you update this post with some examples?

[klocraft]

Below are two sets of screen shots using the OA bifold as an example. The first uses our regular standards and the second is testing our larger print. The layout had to changed significantly...this document started as a bifold, but ended up as a booklet.

The updated font size is working nicely. Minicon + header size underwent further exploration. The examples below are reflective of where we landed (H6, demi, 14 pt minicon).

Regular print standards

Spread 1:

Spread 2:

Larger print size

Spread 1:

Spread 2:

Spread 3:

Spread 4:

[mebates]

@klocraft is this ready for @nataliafitzgerald's approval?

[klocraft]

@nataliafitzgerald has approved on a project level. However, because this project is on hold, I have not moved forward with testing out alternative options on a template level (meaning, testing 12 or 13 pt body copy over 14 pt, for example).

My recommendation would be to move forward with the above as our benchmark for OA products (increasing font size by 3 pts). This recommendation is based both on the blanket rule that 14 pt is considered "large font," and on the positive feedback from the OA team.

But, I would like to continue to test the template on other OA projects before making this a design manual standard.

My next steps: Document recommended size standards of OA products on separate issue. Move the Working Template to the template asset folder. Use my next template working day to explore alternatives.

[mebates]

Great. I'm going to move this to a less-urgent milestone. Thanks!

[klocraft]

Using the above project as an example, I am moving forward with the following suggested sizes:

As we work on more documents in the larger font size, we will be able fine tune our recommendations and update our templates as needed.

[nataliafitzgerald]

From what I can tell from reviewing the issue, this hierarchy has been in testing and has not yet come up for formal review. When it is out of testing and ready for formal consideration are there any thoughts as to how (or if) this should/would be incorporated into the Design Manual. What are the 508 considerations? @mebates is testing the hierarchy in an OA project she is working on now: https://GHE/design-ops/print-library/issues/15#issuecomment-63282. Which other projects have we tested this in thus far?

Is there a designer that would like to volunteer to serve as this issue's ambassador? Looking at the thread it was launched by @mebates and then explored by @klocraft. Since 9/24 it hasn't been touched. If it is a hierarchy we plan to use, we will need a designer to shepherd it through to completion.
@Dnpizarro @mebates @designlanguage

[nataliafitzgerald]

Thank you to @Dnpizarro for offering to shepherd this through. The final deliverable will be a Paragraph Style palette that will be placed in the Brand 2.0 Typography folder. Should other needs be identified, like a templates for certain frequently used document sizes or formats, we can adjust the deliverable list.

[Dnpizarro]

Proposing some revisions to the hierarchy

The changes I'm proposing stem from some work I have been doing with a table tent for OA. @nataliafitzgerald any thoughts on this changes?

[keelerr]

We have a complete template (thanks to @Dnpizarro and @designlanguage), but need to update design manual.