A new tool to help Internet Beginners and Seniors use the Web

As the number of seniors using the internet slowly increases services that make the internet easier to understand and operate are also growing. Undoubtedly the need to make operating and understanding the Internet should decrease as Generation Zuckerberg matures. However till that happens there are a number of  services that exist to help the non-tech savvy elderly jump into the glorious world of the internet.

Internet Buttons, is a website launched by the very wonderful, We Are What We Do a British charity. The site is part of their current campaign, it was funded by The Nominet Trust. It was setup to help bring online the current 6.4 million offline seniors over 65 years old in the United Kingdom.

The website/web app is clean, colorful and expectedly easy to use. You are asked to either create an account for yourself or create an account on behalf of another person. My mother is 56 years old, she doesn’t totally fit the demographics of  this campaign, however English is her third language and she is often scared of breaking the Internet. Creating a profile on her behalf was exceptionally easy, you are asked to edit the buttons with the desired URL, then create a password for the person you are creating the account on behalf of. The  page of buttons receives a lovely unique URL and you are sent a ‘card’ with the details, to share with the person you are creating the page for. There is even a side bar on the left of the page that you can setup with helps and hints. The prominent emergency contact number does feel a little condescending, but could be reassuring to some.

I will be sending this page to my mum with her password, however I doubt she will use this as she genuinely has very little interest in the internet, and thinks that; “young people, need to get away from their computers and go out more.”