How Today's Tech Alienates the Elderly

Barence writes "A UK academic has blamed unnecessarily complicated user interfaces for putting older people off today's technology. Mike Bradley, senior lecturer in product design and engineering at Middlesex University, claims efforts to be more inclusive are being undermined by software and hardware design that is exclusively targeted at younger users. He cites the example of the seemingly simple iPhone alarm clock. 'They're faced with a screen with a clock face and a plus sign icon, and they couldn't understand that you were "adding an alarm," so they didn't click the plus sign to get through to that menu. Pressing the clock image takes you through to choices about how the clock is displayed, and it's not easy to get back again.'"

Comments

Unnecessarily complex?

[pspahn]

Couldn't that also be interpreted as "necessarily simple"?

Older generations don't get it not because of its complexity, but its simplicity. They might understand better if everything had a label and step-by-step info, but for the rest of us that do understand, this just adds complexity when it might not be needed.

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[uncanny]

that's like saying calculus is easy just because you know how to do it, and someone more, ignorant if you will, would have to be shown how to use it. you grew up with computers, so you know the ways to manipulate a comptuer already. Todays OS's are VASTLY more complex than, say, DOS

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[Culture20]

The one thing I've noticed about "computer-stupid" people of any age group is that they're unwilling to click on anything unknown or just test something. It's like they've lost the capacity for experimental play and refuse to learn on their own.

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[Runaway1956]

Mmmm. Points to you for being "right" - but - you're missing something too. I'm rather computer savvy, I'm aging, and looking at a display of an alarm clock, I would hesitate to press the "+" sign to "add an alarm". It's a generational thing, I would guess. I grew up "setting the alarm". Later, when alarm clocks and/or watches had multiple alarms available, I continued to "set the alarms". Add an alarm? The terminology leads me to think that I'm going to add a new clock, or in this case, add a new interface for another alarm clock. I don't want another alarm clock - I want to know how to "set" the one I see!

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[DrgnDancer]

I think it's more fear that they'll break something. Most of us with at least a reasonable understanding of computers have realized that for the most part it's "safe" to play with computer settings and tools. It's rare to screw something up so badly that it can't be fixed, and in large part computer interfaces are designed with either implicit or explicit "undo" options (worst case, exiting a document without saving will nearly always take you back to a "clean" document). Like the monk in the you-tube video your sibling posted though (and if you haven't watched it, it's hysterical), many non-technical users worry that they will damage either the computer or their data if they mess around with stuff.

Personally I consider this attitude somewhat foolish (as I think do most people who fall into the "geek" category), but it's fairly common. Of course if you try to explain to the person that they're unlikely to hurt anything by playing around, they will immediately tell you that it's easy for you to say that, as you're an expert unlikely to hurt anything. It doesn't really occur to them that most of the expertise you or I have comes from a willingness to experiment.

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[StormCrow]

Obligatory XKCD link: http://xkcd.com/627/

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[flaming error]

I absolutely agree, but the problem is a new user might not feel which experiments are harmless. They don't know if the wrong click will do something they don't want, nor whether they'll be able to figure out how to undo it or even if it can be undone. The whole computers/internet is magic to many people. They don't know if a misguided click will cost their privacy or void their warranty or ruin their hardware or break the internets. So they're left frustrated and stressed and cursing at their computer for being so unhelpful and at themselves for being so ignorant.

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[MoonBuggy]

It's perhaps clearer if you see the screen in question. I don't use an iPhone myself, but I was interested to see what all the complaints are about, and as far as I can see this is what they're referring to, and the icon then leads to this. It's not a picture of a clock and a '+' symbol, it's a fairly clear list to which you are adding - the actual alarm setting screen has a clear 'Save' button presented with text. Very, very different to what I (and perhaps many others) envisaged from TFA's description (which was provided without any useful graphic, for some reason).

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[IICV]

I'm rather computer savvy, I'm aging, and looking at a display of an alarm clock, I would hesitate to press the "+" sign to "add an alarm". It's a generational thing, I would guess.

I agree that it's a generational thing, but I don't think it's one in the way you're describing; in fact, I think it has to do with the fact that you would hesitate.

See, the older generations grew up with computers as these big, fragile things; you couldn't fuck around too much, otherwise something might break and it would be all your fault. The generation before that grew up with industrial and farm equipment that was literally dangerous to touch; poke the wrong thing, and you might not have a finger afterwards.

People from those generations are afraid of exploring, because they might accidentally change something and break the computer or lose a finger.

That's not how we do things in modern interface design. The goal is, basically, to make exploration have zero cost; as long as you don't change some state that's visible to you in the program, you can touch buttons all you want and explore the menu structure without any cost.

So yeah, there is a difference - you would hesitate. Someone ten or twenty years younger wouldn't. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Re:Unnecessarily complex?

[SanityInAnarchy]

70 years ago was 1941. Things like atoms were only suspected.

What do you mean by "only suspected", here? Mendeleev's periodic table, arranged by atomic number, was in 1869. The electron was discovered in 1897.

Maybe you mean artificial atomic reactions?

in 1953 came the double helix DNA.

Yet DNA itself was known about since 1869, and it was known to have a regular structure in 1937. In 1943, it was clear that DNA carried genetic data.

The double-helix model is tremendously important to biology, but not at all important to the fundamental ideas of DNA that makes it a household term today.

These are people who thought tv's in color was amazing,

I'm sorry, but they still are. I'm 24, and it still blows my mind how much we're living in the future. I often wish I could give Isaac Newton, or, say, Benjamin Franklin, a tour of our modern world -- and the TV is the first thing that comes to mind.

UI's don't matter. The elderly will simply not use the devices.

UIs absolutely do matter, but I don't agree with the article here -- modern UIs are generally decent, and the biggest thing the elderly lack is the understanding that it's OK to poke at them and play with them to figure out how they work. When the motivation is there, well, they're not likely to be the ones jailbreaking or programming or anything fancy, but my grandparents (the ones still alive) have all at least learned to use email, because that's really important to them -- keeping in touch.

It's just that the bar is a bit higher -- if they have an alarm clock that works, and they don't already magically know how to use the iPhone alarm clock, they'll go with the one they already know how to use instead of actually trying to learn the new one for a minute or two.

"Smart" phones are very hard for some people

[nysus]

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting next to a gentleman, 55 to 60 years old, who was having a great deal of trouble performing what most of us would consider the most basic of functions such as how to add a new city to the iPhone's built-in weather feature. He had just purchased the phone and so I helped him through the process. It was quite an eye-opener for me. He had not even figured out how to appropriately tap on the screen (he was pressing on it as if it were a mechanical button and so his touches never registered). He was constantly misspelling with they keyboard, could not figure out how to correct a mistake. It took him about a dozen efforts and maybe about 3 minutes before he successfully typed in Boston.

I would estimate he would need a one-on-one training of at least a few hours in duration before he could being to use some of the other iPhone's most basic features.

problem is the manner of learning

[Anonymous Coward]

Once someone sees that the plus sign adds an alarm, then they'll know the plus sign adds an alarm. You only have to figure it out once.

I'm not elderly, but I'm old-ish (63) and I watch people my age struggle with very simple things because rather than learn the underlying concepts, they learn by rote. They learn "the second icon from the left does this". They don't bother to learn what the computer is really doing. Use words like "filesystem" and their eye glaze over. But without basic understanding of the technology, everything on the screen is going to be "magic" - if you don't understand the whys and wherefores, there is no hope of ever accomplishing anything but rote memorization.

I'd say about 90% of the time, they are perfectly well able to understand what's happening if they want - they just don't want to. You can't fix "don't want to learn". The ones who value learning, who don't have a culture of shutting of their brains and refusing to ever think, do just fine.

Of course this doesn't apply once certain disabilities like Alzheimer's enter the picture - that's a different problem and one no UI is going to fix.

i am 36

[drolli]

and i am alienated by todays user interfaces. What alienates me most is that showing the keybinding seem to be a thing of the past and pure text menus are not possible to turn on.I like a simple alphabetically sorted list to start apps, which would take less space and not be as weird as having 9 screenful of badly designed, stupidly copied or sometime identical icons. And sorry on the most alarm clocks on smartphones you could instead of the plus easily write "add/set alarm" - no lack of space there.

it's not an older/younger thing

[roc97007]

It's not an older/younger thing, it's entirely an "unnecessarily complicated or obscure" thing. Sure, younger people have more experience with enigmatic interfaces, and are more likely to keep trying without getting frustrated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the interface in question appeals to young folk. For instance, a "set alarm" button would be more immediately understood regardless of age, or (and this point is completely missed) degree of geekiness.