Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: Pop-up ads are strictly prohibited in elderly-friendly apps, and websites must provide extra-large fonts

IT Home reported on April 7 that in order to carry out the special action of making Internet applications suitable for the elderly and barrier-free transformation, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "General Design Specifications for the Elderly Adaptation of Internet Websites" and the "General Design Specifications for the Elderly Adaptation of Mobile Internet Applications (Apps)" on April 7, which clearly stated that pop-up advertisements are strictly prohibited from appearing in elderly-friendly interfaces and separate elderly-friendly apps.

In accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, relevant websites and apps can apply for evaluation to the Internet Society of China and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology respectively after completing the aging-friendly and barrier-free transformation in accordance with the above documents before September 30 this year.

Specifically, the evaluation system for the aging-friendly and barrier-free level of Internet applications consists of three parts: user satisfaction evaluation, technical evaluation, and self-evaluation. The total score is 100 points, and 60 points or more are considered qualified.

After passing the assessment, relevant Internet websites and apps will be awarded the information accessibility mark, which will be valid for two years. For those that have performed outstandingly in aging-friendly and barrier-free renovation work, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will give credit points in the "corporate credit evaluation" and will announce the assessment results to the public before October 31 this year.

The "General Design Specifications for Aging-friendly Mobile Internet Applications (Apps)" proposes that when providing aging-friendly services, companies can embed the aging-friendly version of the interface in the App or develop a separate aging-friendly App.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology specifically stated that advertising content and plug-ins are strictly prohibited in the elderly-friendly interface and separate elderly-friendly apps, and random ads or temporary pop-up ads are not allowed. At the same time, there should be no inducement buttons such as inducing downloads and inducing payments in mobile applications.

According to the latest technical requirements, users should be able to adjust the font size of the App, the line spacing of the text in the paragraph should be at least 1.3 times, and the paragraph spacing should be at least 1.3 times larger than the line spacing. In the future, text color will not be the only means to convey information, indicate actions, prompt responses, etc. to distinguish visual elements. For example, in the scenario where the user enters the wrong password, it should be possible to use text or voice to directly prompt the user that the input is incorrect, and avoid using only color as a prompt.

In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also proposed that relevant websites should prohibit advertising plug-ins and prohibit misleading keystrokes. If there is a floating window on the web page, it should appear synchronously with the web page when the web page is loaded as much as possible, and provide a long-term closing mechanism.

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