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congrats on the site and good luck.

I am wondering if "Elder Friendly" (for the lack of a better name) is an appropriate tag for this site?

Generally, tagging questions (at the tag, and not just description level) level as needing to be simple enough for older people to use.

So in short: How would I appropriately tag a question as "needing to work easily for people who are not very technologically inclined" or "people who have an accessibility problem"?

I realize that 'older' is not a good classification - if anyone has a better suggestion/name that'd be great too. I've tried looking for an "accessible", "accessibility" tag or "visually-impaired" tags but couldn't find any.

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I'd feel its a meta tag. Specific accessibility requirements (or product classes - say 'screen-reader' might make decent tags, or potentially accessibility at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, your question would probably set out the requirements better. Don't forget, while tags make it easier to search, we still have full text search.

I'd consider good specific tags to be something I'd approve in a heartbeat, but elder friendly doesn't sound like one of them to me.

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  • Hmmm, so "elder friendly" is too meta. What about something like "visually impaired"? I also don't see "user friendly" (which I admit sounds like a pretty big meta tag). The reason I brought it up for discussions it that what's confusing me is that some tags here (like windows) relate to a requirement on the software - I agre that in this case "elder friendly" might be too meta.
    – Benjamin Gruenbaum
    Feb 25, 2014 at 6:21
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    I'd think elder friendly, and the requirements to help visually impared folks would be in the question. Accessibility, or assistive-technologies may be better tags to use. The latter feels like a good fit for either cases you've mentioned, assuming we have a good tag excerpt/tag wiki entry. Annoyingly, I can't find any precedents for this sort of tag.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Feb 25, 2014 at 6:25
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To be honest, I find a term like "elder friendly" to be ambiguous and a little condescending. (And I am nowhere near my "elder" years.) What is meant by it? It could mean anything:

  • Easy to use
  • Uncomplicated
  • Accessible for people with low vision
  • Has large buttons
  • Does not include recent pop culture references

Senior citizens don't, as a group, all require any of these things. If something for visually impaired people is needed, that is what the requirement should be. If the software needs to be easy to use, say so. But to tag it "elder friendly" makes an incorrect assumption, and it is not even clear what the assumption is.

If I was looking for a piece of software that was ultimately going to be used by a woman, and I tagged it "female-oriented", no one would know what that meant, unless they wanted to apply various stereotypes and guess what I meant.

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  • I wrote "I realize that 'older' is not a good classification" - I already agree that "elder friendly" is not a good name - I am asking what can be done.
    – Benjamin Gruenbaum
    Feb 26, 2014 at 11:22
  • @BenjaminGruenbaum I realize that, but my point was that it doesn't matter what you call the tag. "elder-friendly", "seniors", "octogenerians": any of these have no meaning unless you pair them with stereotypes. If you want user-friendly software, say so in the question. (I don't think we need a tag for this, because everyone wants user-friendly software.) If you want something accessible for people with low vision, that should be the focus of the tag. Perhaps "accessible".
    – Ben Miller - Remember Monica
    Feb 26, 2014 at 19:13
  • For myself, I'd prefer highly configurable software 99% of the time over 'user friendly' software. Some people would rather have user friendly software over highly configurable software. If you think it's inappropriate for a tag that should probably be your answer.
    – Benjamin Gruenbaum
    Feb 26, 2014 at 22:18
  • @BenjaminGruenbaum Granted, there is often a trade-off between user-friendliness and power. But no one is going to be looking for software with this requirement: "I want something very difficult to use." I think it's a given that, all else being equal, software that is easier to use is better than software that is hard to use.
    – Ben Miller - Remember Monica
    Feb 26, 2014 at 22:24

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