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Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

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Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#1

Post by khoury »

I have been running a SaaS for ~10 years used heavily by people 65+ and a lot of them are tired and frustrated about remembering the domain/path to login screen and then which email/password they used, having to go through the whole forgot-password-flow, etc. I have tried simplifying this as much as i can but I feel like there must be better options. Google sigin in is confusing for them because they get thrown into Googles horrible UX flow where they might have multiple accounts and they don't like when the website suddenly changes.

In general, what is the best way to simplify the auth UX for this group of users? Is there any UI libraries out there targeting this group more specifically? Any good web examples you know of?

thx

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#3

Post by troymc »

I can relate because my dad is 84 and he really struggles with simple things like entering a password to sign in to Gmail. He forgets what he did last time and so I'm back to explaining how moving his mouse causes the pointy-arrow thing move around on the screen, to get it pointed at the wide rectangle near the middle of the screen, etc. No UI library is going to solve his struggles.

I solved most of the sign-in problem for my dad by picking a simpler browser than Google Chrome, and by tweaking his browser settings to be just-so. That's not going to be much help for you, the website creator...

Maybe allow passkeys for login? These days, passkeys usually get stored/supplied by the underlying OS. (By usually, I mean that's the statistically most common source of the passkey today. They can also come from a browser plugin or a hardware key.)

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#4

Post by simonw »

troymc wrote: post #3

I can relate because my dad is 84 and he really struggles with simple things like entering a password to sign in to Gmail. He forgets what he did last time and so I'm back to explaining how moving his mouse causes the pointy-arrow thing move around on the screen, to get it pointed at the wide rectangle near the middle of the screen, etc. No UI library is going to solve his struggles. I solved most of the sign-in prob…

I worry that passkeys are going to confuse the heck out of less technically sophisticated users the moment they hit an edge cases, and I bet they can find edge cases.

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#6

Post by dewey »

rr808 wrote: post #5

I quite like the new trend where you can login just by entering the 2fa on SMS or email. Skip the whole username/password.

I really dislike these "magic links" as a login procedure as you always have to switch between apps instead of just filling login / 2FA with your password manager. SMS is even worse as it's also insecure.

As an additional option, I can see the benefit for people who live in their Gmail app and don't have a password manager.

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#7

Post by doubled112 »

simonw wrote: post #4
troymc wrote: post #3

I can relate because my dad is 84 and he really struggles with simple things like entering a password to sign in to Gmail. He forgets what he did last time and so I'm back to explaining how moving his mouse causes the pointy-arrow thing move around on the screen, to get it pointed at the wide rectangle near the middle of the screen, etc. No UI library is going to solve his struggles. I solved most of the sign-in prob…

I worry that passkeys are going to confuse the heck out of less technically sophisticated users the moment they hit an edge cases, and I bet they can find edge cases.

I can't think of any two sites that work the same way once you start using them. It seemed like every service was its own edge case.

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#8

Post by OuterVale »

A valuable approach is to aim for AAA WCAG conformance. Obviously it isn't a perfect way to go about it and there are other considerations here, but at level AAA you're more likely than not ensuring an extremely clear and usable interface.

Re: Ask HN: Easiest UX for Seniors

#9

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

dewey wrote: post #6
rr808 wrote: post #5

I quite like the new trend where you can login just by entering the 2fa on SMS or email. Skip the whole username/password.

I really dislike these "magic links" as a login procedure as you always have to switch between apps instead of just filling login / 2FA with your password manager. SMS is even worse as it's also insecure. As an additional option, I can see the benefit for people who live in their Gmail app and don't have a password manager.

On iOS, the code from Messages or email is auto populated. But just don’t do email. Too many things can go wrong.

But I do love pass keys.

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