Designing for the Life Span Segment 3
Designing for the Life Span Segment 3 
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The outdoor environment poses significant challenges for older adults especially on bright days when direct glare, as well as other forms of glare, is at its highest. There is generally a defusion of light passing through the cornea that is now increasing in opacity. The two photo sequence below demonstrates the effect of 50% opacity of the cornea. There is a general loss of sensitivity to detail, a loss of color saturation and a decrease in the ability to perceive depth (especially the height of curbs and steps).
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Beginning with the natural environment, older people will experience difficulty handling the direct glare from the sun.
In this slide, and others to follow, an "empathic" lens developed at the University of Michigan by Dr. Leon Pastalan has been placed over the lens of the camera to simulate 50% opacity of the lens of the eye. The lens provides an optically correct visual image. As can be seen, there is a diffusion of light entering the eye making the scene blurred. There is reduction in intensity of color as well as a flattening of space. These changes to vision require changes in coping. Negotiation of a space may require additional time to reckon with the difficulty in perceiving obscured information...
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