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How Bad User Interfaces Can Ruin Lives
Lauren Weinstein writes: A couple of months ago, in "Seeking Anecdotes Regarding 'Older' Persons' Use of Web Services," I asked for stories and comments regarding experiences that older users have had with modern Web systems, with an emphasis on possible problems and frustrations. I purposely did not define "older" — with the result that responses arrived from users (or regarding users) self-identifying as ages ranging from their 30s to well into their 90s (suggesting that "older" is largely a point of view rather than an absolute). Before I began the survey I had some preconceived notions of how the results would appear. Some of these were proven correct, but overall the responses also contained many surprises, often both depressing and tragic in scope. The frustration of caregivers in these contexts was palpable. They'd teach an older user how to use a key service like Web-based mail to communicate with their loved ones, only to discover that a sudden UI change caused them to give up in frustration and not want to try again. When the caregiver isn't local the situation is even worse. While remote access software has proven a great boon in such situations, they're often too complex for the user to set up or fix by themselves when something goes wrong, remaining cut off until the caregiver is back in their physical presence.
I'd love interfaces that don't change every 2 weeks. Especially certain web browsers and desktop environments which seem to be plagued with such issues.
Perhaps Slashdot should take a cue from this article and stop messing around with the UI!
'without cognitive impairment'.
'cognitive impairment' is a hell of a lot more gradual than you think.
For someone using computers a lot, they're probably going to figure it out.
For someone not using computers a lot, and who have managed to do things by remembering exactly what to click - this is enormously fragile.
Issues from 'I might break it' -> 'I might put it in a mode I don't understand how to get out of'
Someone in this position may not be able to recover from an expanded list collapsing down to a tiny triangle on a mis-click, especially if this is a feature that they will never need.
Or icons changing from ones they know, or menus moving around.
I think a problem is the automatic assumption many young people make that the reason why an older person doesn't use something is because it's to complicated for someone older. I claim that this is largely false, and that the reason why older people don't use the technologies is because they suck, are intrusive, unreliable and fleeting.
Young people are less critical, and seldom think long term (and when they do, they think a year is long term).
Why should an old person learn to use (in rapid succession) CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo, LiveJournal, Myspace, Facebook, Flicker, Pinterest, Instagram (and so on and so on), instead of his relatives putting a little effort into hand written letters and face time?
Well that may be so. But as you get older you get less patient with people wasting your time.
Let's say you're 90 years old. You're using a webmail system which does everything you need it to do. Then some manager has a brainwave and suddenly all the functions are somewhere else. How much of the 3.99 years the actuarial tables say you've got left do you want to spend dealing with that?
It's not just 90 year-olds. Take a poll of working-age users and find out how many like the MS Office Ribbon; how many people are cool with the regular UI reshuffling that takes place in Windows just to prove you're paying your upgrade fee for software that's "new"?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What happened is that people who used the system very day, day in and day out, became so fast at entering the machine settings the rate of UI events exceeded the ability of the custom monitor software written for the machine to respond correctly to them.
Which is still to some extent a UI issue.
But the literal "killer" is what happened next:
1) The machine detected that it had screwed up.
2) But the UI reported this by a cryptic error message: "MALFUNCTION nn" - where the 1 = nn = 64 error codes not only weren't explanatory, but weren't even included in the manual.
3) And if the operator hit "P" (for "proceed") the machine would GO AHEAD AND OPERATE in the known-to-be-broken mode, giving the patient a fatal (high-power, not-swept-around) electrons rather than a 100x weaker flood of x-rays, with NO FURTHER INDICATION that something is still wrong (unless you count the patient sometimes screaming and running out of the room.)
If 2) and 3) aren't user interface problems, what is?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
strong. I don't want to say "failing" just very poor memory and the like caused by very poor health. One case is a man who was in the tech industry years ago, but that doesn't mean that as his mind was harmed by the effects of illness he could continue to make sense of Google's ever changing interface. He didn't have a problem with mail so much (he used thunderbird, so that interface wasn't changing), but he couldn't navigate Google's changing phone service interfaces. Combine that with poor eyesite and problems with phone drivers that occasionally have to reload ... and there would be days when he had no phone service until someone came by and fixed his computer.
Keep in mind that there are people (once again the same man) who at times find simply dialing a phone too hard. Maybe they're too slow for hospital phone that gives you 20 seconds of dial tone then gives up, or worse gives you 20 seconds but no audio cue like a dialtone.
For such people you need interfaces designed differently than ones for average customers. You need interfaces that NEVER change. You need interfaces that have no time-outs. You need interfaces that force modal interactions rather than assuming that the user will NOTICE something.
Don't forget visual impairment. They may be depending on the splat looking thing next to the red thing being the send button. Move it and good luck.
I still don't know how to use Word. Luckily I don't have to. But I've dealt with enough user interfaces that I can muddle my way through them and eventually get something done. Occasionally I get something so screwed up that I can't recover (or I never even learn that there's a shortcut bar so never notice that it's missing). I've learned to think about all the stupid ways that stuff could be done. I switch between different UIs and operating systems all the time.
A key point though which distinguishes me from a senior citizen who can't figure out computers, is that I experiment. My mother is always worried about clicking on something unfamiliar, because she thinks that it may screw stuff up and it will be a big headache to try to sort it out. WHICH IS TRUE, because it does screw things up! Her mouse clicks aren't always accurate so she does click on the wrong things sometimes and it's a mess (I have this happen to me when I'm forced to use a touchpad on a laptop and end up accidentally clicking while trying to drag). So computers have taught her to beware of doing the wrong thing or she will be sorry! Computers are punishing the users and creating negative reinforcement.
Users are being conditioned to not experiment, but at the same time the interfaces are changing every few months!
I think every software team that creates a UI needs to hire a few 80 year olds for the QA group.
A race condition in the software and counter overflows are not "Bad User Interfaces". They software defects. I'm pretty sure no one designed those bugs in to the code.
Well, part of every crap interface is some techy geek thinking it is not the fault of the UI. So consider this the "tech geek says it ain't a UI problem" part of the problem.
It's not just computers. Plastic measuring cups have their sizes in raised plastic numbers, almost impossible to see. Packages, even for staple foods, are really hard to open. Printed instructions are in really small font. And on and on.
I wish there was a culture of designers taking their work home to their mothers and grandmothers to see how their stuff operates in the real world. Also, every CEO should be required to call in to their company's telephone support system, use the menu, and listen to the hold music -- over their cell phones while they drive (or are driven ) to work. (Not to mention legislators being required to go to the DMV, etc., etc.) Things would change real fast...
Remember how you used to be able to right click on a network connection and go 'properties' from the system tray?
Those were the days.
Now it's "Open Network and Sharing Center", go past the annoying homegroup sharing bullshit that nobody has EVER used, now you can see your network connections and FINALLY you can get into the settings.
I can believe that people are studying UX, but not that whatever they're studying SAYS DOING THIS BULLSHIT IS GOOD.
If you regard staying in touch with your family as a "chore", just say so--but don't use the medium as an excuse.
When you and they are oceans apart, having something that your mom, dad, or kid physically touched/made/wrote/sent can mean quite a lot to some of us.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You've exactly described my mother's experience with computers. She's been like this for years. Since her 40s. She just memorizes sequence of actions and if anything's changed she is stuck. I don't know what the issue is, as she's smart otherwise. After two years of computer use I realized she still didn't even know about copy and paste. It's taken me about two or three years to get her to use that functionality and she's still not competent with it. I'd love to know why this is so hard for her.
soylentnews.org
The whole point of this subject is no the fuck it doesn't.
Now options may possibly need to be offered as an option to those who might choose them. The rest of us want the gas pedal to stay in the same place in every car on the planet.
User interfaces are not computer games. They are a means to control something, and with the advent of the internet, probably something not even imagined by the UI designer. Would you advocate having a bunch of graphics arts students come in the factory and move the controls on industrial machine tools in their "industrial design" class every Thursday? Leaving the controls in a random position, and omitting the odd "emergency stop" button?
No, if it works, don't fix it
There is no reason why new user interfaces should not be designed, or old ones improved, but no way on earth that this should ever happen to an existing user other than at his explicit request. EVER!!!!!!!!! and it needs a review and automatic undo facility like when you change the screen resolution and if you don't confirm (cos you can't read the message, or find the undo button because it is in blue and on a blue background) it undoes by itself.
If you employ UI designers, you should realise these people make a living from fucking with UIs, and need to be restrained - quite possibly in a padded cell for their own protection.
Signed
Somone who was exposed to Unity and Lollipop.