Slashdot Mirror
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.
ever heard of a Therac 25?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
suggesting that "older" is largely a point of view rather than an absolute)
Anyone without cognitive impairment or severe physical limitations can use most common user interfaces (which is definitely not to say they can't be made more usable and efficient).
That includes many 70 year olds, and a fair number of 90 year olds.
Listen up slashdot. "Share" vs. "Read More"...
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!
Hell, I'm not even 40 yet and I would like to see some of the websites I regularly use to stop changing UIs for the sake of change.
Progress I will accept it, but if I need to spend the better part of a morning trying to figure out how to do something that only took 3 clicks before the update, that's not progress in my book.
Hear hear!!
Get up out of that chair and go to walking.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Having worked in user support and network administration for multiple industries, I can imagine the frustration for caregivers when even the remote support software is just too confusing for the user.
For instance, many of the most popular remote support services require the end user to jump through multiple hoops that may include surfing to a particular web address (which they invariably type into Google or Yahoo instead of the address bar), entering a series of digits they swear they typed correctly (but often haven't and are too stubborn to re-read what they typed), then watch the screen for browser interaction prompts (which may be reasonable-sized prominent pop-up dialogs, but are more often either a noticeable thin yellow bar at the top or bottom of the browser window, or even worse, a pop-up window that somehow ended up as a pop-under, even though that's not how it is supposed to be), then click only the buttons that answer in the affirmative. All of this assumes the user's browser even works correctly.
Some days, it seems that even the young-uns can't figure out how to allow a remote support session.
I do know there are a few less-complicated remote support products, but they are few and far between, do not seem to be popular enough to be in common use in these scenarios, and often have more security issues than the services I mention above.
Much of the remote support problem is the catch-22 of browser security. If you don't secure the browser more, the customer is at risk. If you do secure the browser more, the customer's experience is further complicated.
There are those who would say "just educate the user". These are the people who do not understand their fellow humans and the limitations different types of learner and different generational barriers.
So, what about writing down instructions ahead of time? That gets into what the original post discussed; The interface will inevitably change, either for the browser or for the remote support service.
I'm not saying I think there is a fix. I don't. I do think it is something that might could be solved if the industry becomes more aware of the Human Interface Design problem it has.
Lillian could write a letter and send a fax. We bought a fax for her assisted living home, and one for our house. She died at, I think, 96, in '07. But for the 3 years she was in that assisted living home my ex talked to her mom daily over that fax connection.
:)
About a year after she died I tried to craigslist the 2 fax machines, no joy. I gave them to goodwill and took a nice tax deduction. I can admit to that because the statue of limitations has passed
I've encountered a lot of situations where so-called software designers ("so-called" because they are often graphic designers who ended up with the title "software designer" without the experience or education associated with that title) feel the need to make the UI look "better" when the underlying software doesn't completely work. This is like putting lipstick on a pig - it's still a pig.
Another aspect of this is that designers forget that users don't use their software as often as they might. They see things every day that they don't like, and they want to change these things, but the users don't see that problem.
One example of software that became less useful with changes is the Now Utilities suite for the Mac that was made unusable by constant changes. Useful features were removed or made useless. I finally had to freeze my environment so I could actually get my work done. This often meant living with other bugs because upgrading the software was detrimental to the system as a whole.
Having done tech support for clueless customers and family members for years, I find a lot of older people treat using technology like following a recipe.
They don't understand (or are unwilling to understand) how their programs work, and they are unable to recognize patterns in similar UIs, so they follow a set of instructions to do what they need to do - 1) Click this button, 2) Click that button, etc.
A UI change is devastating to them because the instructions they were following are now useless. They have to go through all the motions again and make a new set of instructions for themselves.
This is made even worse by the stigma around old people and technology - "I'm too old to learn something new", "I can't keep up with all these changes", "I had so many steps to follow already, I can't handle any more".
They get overwhelmed by the perceived difficulty, their emotions take over, and it causes frustration for everyone involved.
Even if a company does create instructions and user guides it's not guaranteed to help. A company can only do so much to prepare users for changes; they can't change human nature.
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.
In my spare time I pay visit to local elders and from them I have heard plenty of horrible anecdotes of how a change, no matter how minuscule that might be, might have a detrimental effect to some of the users - especially the elders
For example - for years there was a service whereby the older people can call up, and a human operator will answer. If the older people needs something that service would try to find people / resources to help out
That went on many years without problems and many elders, especially those staying alone, rely on the service
Then suddenly someone decide to save some money by installing an auto attendant, where callers must listen to some options and then dial a particular number for a particular task
For young people there should be no problem - but for older people where many have problem listening, and hand-eye coordination ability are no longer 'sharp', that auto attendant thing puts off many of the elderly
Couple with it the audio script that was badly scripted (long-winded and without clear roadmap), and was read by someone with a very lousy accent
Many of the elders have told me that they stopped calling that service because to them 'it's a torture'
In short - a UI change, no matter how minor it might seem, may whack some severe blows to users whose ability are not as sharp as others
> and replace it with confusing trendy hipster bullshit!
That pretty much says it all.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Come on, some lawyer will jump on this - just as soon as we get being a curmudgeon classified as a disability.
Or maybe anyone can self-identify as disabled?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
There's no way you're going to get for-profit corporations to maintain two UIs by asking nicely -- budgets I've seen barely cover one UI development pipeline, and even that goes south more often than not.
What you MIGHT be able to do, however, is get this passed legislatively as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) -- if it's required to do business online in the US that you have an Accessibility-focused UI, then people will reluctantly do it in the same way they (usually, not always) reluctantly spend extra money building wheelchair-accessible ramps to supplement the cheaper option of stairs.
We're at the point now where the internet is a public good, just like streets, and it's time to start thinking about how to solve the online problems like these in the same we solved it offline over the last 200 years.
So to all reading this: I'd suggest the call to action isn't "hey, let's do the right thing, tell your friends", but instead "hey, lobby your congressman / senator and get this passed as pat of the relevant disabilities and accessibility laws, and tell your friends to do the same".
You could have bought literally any USB mouse and it would have worked.
What's hyperbolic about it? There are examples in various posts of people who stopped communicating with their loved ones because they couldn't figure out the new interface or who stopped receiving services for the elderly because someone put in a automated voice messenging system. We're turning into a society where computers are becoming essential for both getting things done and for connecting with each other. Bad and arbitrary UI changes break that.
I think what this story is really about is drunk texting and emailing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Although software is getting easier to use in many ways, mobile OSs manage to include both the best and worse in usability.
"Press that button below the screen, then tap the envelope picture to see your mail", is something that almost anyone could work out for themselves, but actions such as a long-hold on an item, swiping it left or right, tap with two fingers at once, dragging in a direction with two or three fingers, drag down to reveal the hidden search box above the list and drag from outside the screen area all are examples of interactions that you might never discover.
I've worked for two companies where "agile" methodology applied company-wide meant point releases every one or two weeks and minor UI changes with every point release to "get better with each version." This floated mgmt's boat and kept the UX/UI people busy and excited, but it was a nightmare for customer support and (evidently, by extension) for customers who could never quite feel as though they'd "learned" to use the software.
Every time they logged in they struggled to figure out how to repeat the workflows they'd struggled to get ahold of the previous time. Of course, the widgets, labels, views, etc. tended to change between logins. Kind of like a maze with moving walls.
I argued for UI changes to be batched for major versions, but this supposedly wasn't "agile."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Stop ruining my life!
Claiming that a UI of a service that is often free and has thousands of competitors is "ruining someone's life" is just stupid. If you don't like a UI, don't use it. In fact, there are plenty of UIs for mail and other services that have changed hardly at all in a decade; just use those.
First, this survey was not mainly about grandmothers. They had "ages ranging from their 30s to well into their 90s," and "a vast number of responses involved highly skilled, technologically-savvy individuals -- often engineers themselves."
The overwhelming complaints were of:
- "low-contrast interfaces and fonts, gray fonts on gray backgrounds"
- "Hidden menus. Obscure interface elements (e.g., tiny upside-down arrows). Interface and menu elements that only appear if you've moused over a particular location on the display. Interface elements that are so small or ephemeral that they can be a challenge to click even if you still have the motor skills of youth."
- "the sudden change of an icon from a wrench to a gear, or a change in a commonly used icon's position"
Yahoo mail classic, remember why you never switched to the new yahoo mail? Well its standard now and you can't go back
Also apple why you change my ui? Ios 6 looked fine!.....why don't you support theming yet????
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
One day I counted click and scrolls for my use case and they doubled in Gnome 3 over Gnome 2. It wasn't a matter of not liking fonts or colors or how windows flew across the screen, it was knowing how easy it used to be making every extra click and scroll in Gnome 3 upsetting for me. How did the designers of that UI not see this? Currently writing this using Gnome 2 on Fedora 14.
Someone turning 65 this year, was born in 1950. If we take 1980 as a rough date for when personal computers became affordable & popular, that means in all likelihood this person spent 30 years with NO COMPUTER. I find it hard to believe someone like this, with 20, 30, 40 computerless years under their belt, can have their life RUINED by not using them in their later years. In other words for every elder who is heart-wrenchingly and helplessly falling out of step with the Great Boon, I guarantee there are at least two who are basically just blowing computers off, because they were never that attached to them in the first place.
I think software should offer an option (disabled by default, but mentioned when first used) which switches the interface to that of the previous version. If more than half of your users switch back, you line up your UI "experts" and give them each a kick in the nuts and a pink slip.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Wait until Dad's having a heart attack and Mum can't ring the ambulance because her phone UI has changed again and she's too upset to be able to figure it out and THERE'S NO BLOODY TIME for that nonsense in any case.
Hyperbolic enough for ya?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
..that the first third of that post was designed to avoid any friction with people that might be offended by being classified as old, and not about the subject matter itself. Nevermind, it looks like the story was from the US.
> Anyone without cognitive impairment or severe physical limitations can use most common user interfaces
This is exactly the arrogant attitude which leads to the misery we are in. Combine this with "oh, shiny!" and we have a perfect recipe for disaster.
Someone got confused by Snapchat (he's not the only one) and sent a video to his entire contact list instead of just his girlfriend. Those should not have been easy to confuse.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Most user interfaces are murderous enough nowadays without having to blame it on upgrades.
This was the longest article that I read that said almost nothing. The TFS is basically "People have problems with modern interfaces, please provide a simple accessible interface." At any point in reading the article I was hoping for some salient details and examples, what does not work and what may be better solutions. But I was disappointing, no details, no analysis, nothing. This article is borderline useless, it is a half mute scream of "something needs to be done", but does not provide any guidance as to what and how.
Chrome on my brand-spankin-new Galaxy S6 edge
Chrome on android is a horrible piece of software. Samsung has done wonders with the 'Internet' browser on S6. It's the fastest browser on any mobile device, if you believe some reviewers. Use that instead of chrome. The only advantage chrome has is the sync with desktop chrome.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
car. The steering wheel is mandated, even though a stick would work. Etc.
the biggest problem is, it's very hard to do a good UI, as a good UI means something different to different people, what you might think to be a good UI for you, might be horrible for others..
Windows 8 is a good example, some people really like the spacious UI and think it's productive, but others think it's a waste of space and could show much more information which doesn't need you to scroll for seeing the same extra information.. Also the settings for instance are way less than what would be more productive for a more advanced user, yes it's enough for a 'dumb' user, but for others it's counterproductive as they need to find the advanced settings which show much more..
Good UI's are very difficult to do due to the many whishes and habbits of all the users.. Less visible is not always better...
Common User Access Standard.
Enough said. ...
The very first to start breaking the rules on a broad scale was - curiously enough - Apple with their we're-doing-everything-different-this-time iTunes programm. UI standards basically went steeply downhill from there on. We've moved so far away from standards that it can even take an expert weeks to get familiar with programms (s)he should be able to operate instantly. On top of that, the software manual has disappeared (I'm looking at you, Adobe)
Handling computers has gotten more difficult, no doubt.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I have recent experience of this. My 71 year old father recently got his first ever computer. I've been around computers since the days of the ZX Spectrum, have used everything from DOS, most flavours of Windows, OS X and Linux, so it was a real eye opener to see how difficult it is for someone with absolutely no previous experience.
He's intelligent and willing to learn, but even basic concepts take a lot of time to get across. I'm lucky in that he lives reasonably close to me, so I can show him things. Trouble is, he's got a Windows 8.1 laptop, and even I find that frustrating and counter intuitive. I thought it might be easier for someone with no previous expectations - he's never used other versions, so the changes shouldn't bother him - but the mix of metro and desktop applications is just so counter intuitive. I had tried nudging him towards a macbook, but he couldn't justify the price difference. Perhaps a chrome book would have suited him better, but it might have been too limiting.
I dread Windows 10 and having to start again, I know that. User friendly is only user friendly if you're already familiar with computers, but I suppose it's a problem that will fix itself when the generation that never used them dies out.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
[T]he reason why older people don't use the technologies is because they suck, are intrusive, unreliable and fleeting.
This. I was born in the 1950s, when dirt was still relatively new, and this is exactly it. When one first sees new software and UI technologies as a young person, understanding them is an end in itself. After 50 years of watching them come and go, however, I am tired of the technology of the month, and instead find myself using something stable that will allow me to get my "real" work done -- that being the point of software, after all.
Learning to use a good software tool once is a useful and rewarding experience. Being condemned to a lifetime of re-learning to use the same tool every year just because some idiot changed the UI, not so much. (Sisyphus would understand.)
I sometimes ask these UI wizards what they think would happen if I moved the keys on their keyboards around with every software release, in response to the latest theories on typing speed and accuracy, and perhaps added and/or subtracted a few just, well, just because I thought it would be a good idea. If one is, say, ten years old and just learning to touch-type, perhaps the new keyboard layout indeed would be better. However, the installed base of zillions of users that are used to, and expected to see, the old keyboard arrangement would be totally hosed, and would need to retrain themselves just to get back to the productivity levels they had before I "helped" them. Do you really, really want to do this kind of thing to your customers? Repetitively?
I am always amused to find that the same programmers that gleefully shuffle, delete, and obfuscate menus and other UI features for their users strenuously object if you even suggest taking away their precious Dvorak, XP, or simple QWERTY keyboards -- let alone, say, reverse the order of the bottom row of keys, transpose the T and H keys, and move the "@" symbol so that it is now CTRL - ALT - ].
The trouble is, it's so hard to function now without web access. My father recently got his first computer at 71. His reason? So much information is now only available on the web, or using the internet saves you money. So without a computer he'd have been cut off from society in a way that wasn't true even ten years ago. So much is now internet only that your life is certainly much harder without it - maybe not "ruined", but certainly difficult.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
I have first hand experience with these sorts of issues. I set up a web email account for my mother and taught her how to use it. It wasn't long before icons and menus started moving around and she got confused.
Lately this particular email provider has completely changed how things worked so that even savvy users have problems with it.
However at the end of day my mother and I are not the customers, we are the product, and Marissa will of course of do what is in the best interests of the actual paying customers. It sucks, but I don't see it changing while advertising is the only workable business model of the internet (even porn is really just 'advertising of porn', which is why you get these endless pits of porn link farms (or so I've been told)).
So, the letter "X" is supposed to stand for user "experience". But honestly, who would choose that letter to represent that word, or even that concept?
The problem begins at the very root. As long as people think the goal is to design some thing, and not to serve some one, then we will continue to disrespect the user by doing stupid things like throwing away a perfectly good interface and forcing everyone to change all at once.
I wish to dear heaven that everyone in my business would always provide a minimalist interface to everything as an option. It wouldn't be expensive, because you'd never have to change it.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
My mom doesn't have one of those new-fangled computers and doesn't need it. Except for all the stuff I've ordered online for her, and the occasional account I've set up so she can get some discount or other.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
We all know that person, usually older, who only does actions on the computer via memorizing the exact steps. To understand how they're thinking and how hazy the rest of the UI to them is, recall the last time you had to give instructions to them on the phone without a computer in front of you to reference. Its hard as hell. This is how they're parsing steps, blind to anything outside the steps.
Sadly, this is commonly result of having a crutch available (you). They know they can just call you and not think. I try not to respond to my mom's and grandmother's requests for at least two to three hours, and they figure out 75% of them on their own this way. I also engage them when helping by pointing out the problem and asking them where they think they should go given their current situation. Its greatly reduced their reliance on me and increased their skill with using computers.
Isn't it obvious that most of the problem is when people learn GUI procedurally? Rather than learning the GUI concept and visual language? Yes, the visual language changes somewhat, but not dramatically (a little flatter, etc).
Accessibility is important, but it pertains to issues of icon size, readability. Sanity of UI matters too (whether normal workflow requires a lot of click-sequences). But the main issue here is that no one should ever use a computer procedurally. Letting them do so may seem effective, but none of our systems are appliance-like (in the sense of fixed-function/interface). Yes, if someone only ever uses a computer for one thing, it may seem pointless to explain the concept of GUIs, but it's also necessary.
This.
Also, look at Cadence.
The sad thing is that what I generally see is that when poor user interfaces get updated these days it goes through some sort of committee of "experts" who design something even worse and more obfuscated. MS Word and Excel were poor before, but now they are just about unusable even after using them with the Ribbon for a few years.
Search any technology with "for seniors" after it and you'll find companies designing products with them in mind. Like this tablet, for instance:
http://www.techhive.com/articl...
The company that starts a branded line of electronic products and services with simple/familiar and definitely rarely updated interfaces is going to make a nice chunk of change.
A quick rant. One thing I'd like to see personally are beepers for seniors. Knew a senior (now passed) who lived well enough alone but was often unreachable because she would never use or charge her simple cellphone and would sometimes not hang up the house phone properly. I figure Get her a beeper! Runs for over a month on two AAAs! She can just leave it on in her purse and we could always beep her and have her call us. And she was a retired nurse, so she'd be familiar with the technology. But by the mid-2000s beepers had gone the way of the dodo.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
"ruin" is way too strong a word for my situation but phone service has declined to the point that I can not use it. I have a slight speech impediment. If you were to talk to me in person, you might have a slight difficulty but usually people do fine. In the 1980s, the real phones with real wires, people preferred talking on the phone to talking to me in person. The clarity was very good and the slight amplification that the system provided along with the added focus of being on a phone helped. But today, the voice quality is awful and no one seems to care. The concept of side tone is lost and gone thus causing people to scream into their phones. The concept of accurate microphones and speakers is lost. The idea of a phone that conforms to your head is lost. Now we have flat phones without side tone and extremely lossy connections. The other place is with all the voice activated stuff. Sure does look fun but it doesn't even vaguely begin to work with me. Again, I would never use the word "ruined" but it does leave me feeling left out.