Bet you have never heard of Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) - is that likely to change?

If this works it could be amazing. The critical word in the previous sentence is 'if'.

The problem GPII is trying to solve is that most interface designers don't take account of the needs of older people  - yes I mean you Apple, Microsoft, Google......

Yes, you have sections in the 'options' for people for disabilities but you don't have it as a fundamental design need that the interface can be used by all ages.

This is where GPII comes to the rescue. At this point look at the video since I am not going to describe how it works.

OK, so now you now how it works and the scope of its ambition. Global and all pervasive. Unrealistic? Naive? Impossible to achieve? Mmmmm

Well there is $20,000,000 just been made available to help it on its way.

Laurie Orlov has pondered the subject and makes use of the latest figures from Pew Research that show the level of digital exclusion in the US (about 15% of the population). If you then add in the number that only it use it for the most basic features of e-mail and a bit of search the figures is closer to 25%.

Now I am a simple soul and the question I ask is if the big beasts of the interface world don't take the subject seriously to build it into their own interfaces - why are the going to spend the time and effort in using GPII.

What the interface designers need to do is to get out of their heads that it is only the disabled that need different variants of design but is soon going to be a sizeable part of the population of users.

So what you need to do is at set-up time provide the option to select from a menu the physiological ageing effects that are relevant to you  - then the interface will configure accordingly. Just to say that again - this is core to the design of the interface not some set of optional extras.

I will keep an eye of GPII - what they need is to get Google onside. That would give the project wheels. Dick Stroud