Designing For Different Generations

There are a lot of things to consider when designing for different generations. You have to think about the limitations that past generations might have when planning and developing anything for them. A good way to prepare for this is to use personas. Creating a couple personas that target a very specific type of user can help you decide what will work and what will not work while designing.

A couple people have brought up the iPhone and touch screen technologies. I don't think this is a great example of designing for different generations. The iPhone and iPad were designed so "you already know how to use them." There are some instances where babies have been able to use iPads, because there is a common knowledge with these touch screen interfaces that seems to come naturally to the users. This isn't to say that all devices that utilize touch screen interfaces will be easy to use for all generations, but I believe that good design can span multiple generations.