another thing too is to avoid shades of pale yellow. studies have shown that the tone of yellow becomes harder to see for that population. i use a combination of serif/sans serif when i'm designing for that audience and do get a positive feedback. i think the visual weight difference between the two styles serves as a good cue to them that, say, this is main body text and this is a sidebar.
lists and boxed information is good as well.
i would stay around the 12-13 pt area. 14pt is often referred to, but i've been using 12pt for many years with could results. don't lead it out too far, and if you run multiple columns, don't make them too tight. i seem to remember something about the optimal column width being somewhere around 22-25 characters, but i'm sure i've got that wrong.
just remember a couple of things. these folks read newspapers every day -- they're prolly the only ones still doing it -- and they can read those pretty well. they also read the bible, and most of them that i've seen aren't using the large-print versions unless their eyesight is really bad. and i think the king james version is set in 7 pt.
Linear Mode
