Bridging the Digital Divide: Key Takeaways from China’s Senior‑Friendly & Accessibility Design Forum

As China moves toward an aging society, seniors and people with disabilities are increasingly benefiting from information technology, yet a digital information gap remains.

On March 24, Baidu MEUX and the Information Accessibility Society jointly held an online forum on senior‑friendly and accessibility design. Experts from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Accessibility Research Association shared the latest industry developments, while Baidu’s care‑version product, design, and user‑research teams presented their thoughts and practices on designing for the silver‑hair population.

Keynote: APP Accessibility and Future Research Priorities

Ding Liting (CAICT) presented "APP Senior‑Friendly and Accessibility Transformation Status and Future Research Priorities". She noted that intelligent terminals and mobile internet applications in China generally lack universal design concepts, resulting in low accessibility adoption and early‑stage senior‑friendly retrofitting.

Future work should continue to promote accessibility development, accelerate the integration of new technologies with accessibility, digitize accessible facilities, encourage product R&D and popularization, and optimize websites and mobile applications to help seniors and disabled users cross the digital divide.

Four Specific Action Points

Expand retrofitting scale – promote senior‑friendly and accessibility upgrades for provincial and municipal internet applications and include mini‑programs.

Facilitate feedback channels – enable users to report issues via websites, mini‑programs, and phone, and supervise ongoing operation and maintenance of evaluated apps.

Promote education and guidance – publicize senior‑friendly smart applications, provide tutorials and videos, and display them prominently for easy access.

Establish experience zones – showcase senior‑friendly and accessible products for hands‑on exploration by seniors and disabled users.

Product Perspective: Baidu Care‑Version

Summer Xia (Baidu Care‑Version product lead) shared Baidu’s senior‑friendly product approach: after extensive user research and crowdsourcing, Baidu refined core functions from an emotional standpoint, ensuring readability, audibility, operability, and understandability, while adding features such as auto‑play videos, personalized recommendations, instructional videos, dedicated support hotlines, and a senior‑focused official website to enhance safety and companionship.

Design Standards and Research

Yu Xia (Baidu Care‑Version design lead) introduced the "Mobile Internet Application Senior‑Friendly Design Group Standard" and discussed design standards for visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments, covering font size, line spacing, contrast, color hue, speech interaction, volume perception, touch area, and gesture operations.

Lu Yongsheng (Senior UX Engineer, Baidu Care‑Version) presented research on senior‑centered user studies, distinguishing two research dimensions: demand‑oriented studies focusing on functional and content preferences of older users, and experience‑oriented studies addressing sensory and interaction needs caused by aging.

Conclusion

The forum provided abundant insights and practical guidance for building an inclusive information society. A replay of the live session is available for further learning.