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Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

whatusersdo.com

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Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#31

Post by carsongross »

cableshaft wrote: post #24
carsongross wrote: post #6

The UX world has gone so far backwards, regardless of age, in the last five years it's hard to know where to begin: flat design, washed out colors, thin fonts, buttons that look like badges that look like input boxes that look like borders, modals that take over the entire screen with only a faint x in the upper right corner to indicate what is going on, input fields with internal labels that disappear as soon as any…

I think simple flat design and simple color schemes was a good change, personally. The rest I don't really disagree with.

Flat design is bad UX because it took a useful and familiar dimension, simulated depth, out of the toolbox. I agree that simulated depth was over used and that the minimalist aspect of flat UI did improve aesthetics in many cases, but it was a net loss due to the UX problems it caused. The right thing was to do depth aesthetically correctly (only a few pixels are needed, and only on important elements) while still retaining the usability advantages of it.

Unfortunately the design world (and the art world more generally) appears to be extremely prone to binary thinking: either something is obviously wonderful, or it must be discarded completely.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#33

Post by Pxtl »

primo44 wrote: post #7

Now if only the Google maps (mobile version) devs would read this. On Android anyway, no matter how much you zoom the text labels on things like street and highway numbers will not enlarge. 5 years ago that wasn't the case.

To be fair, it makes sense that Google Maps would have distinct concepts for "zooming in to the map" that would be separate from "resizing font".

The inverse problem exists on the browser, though - there's no way to resize the viewport on mobile.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#34

Post by Pxtl »

chiph wrote: post #2

"Congratulations, here's your first set of glasses" - the present I got when I turned 50. While the site focuses on seniors, a lot of the suggestions are good ones in any case - fonts larger than legalese and with good contrast will make your page more easily approachable and less likely to lose viewers who get frustrated because they can't read what you're trying to say.

About half the devs in my team have their font rendering cranked up on their desktops, and they're all in their 20s, so it's not just old people who benefit from this.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#35

Post by ashark »

FabHK wrote: post #28
cableshaft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think simple flat design and simple color schemes was a good change, personally. The rest I don't really disagree with.

But you probably "grew up" with the prior, more easily discoverable interface versions. (Remember that when Steve Jobs presented the iPhone, he had to explain the "flick to scroll" gesture, because it was so new - previously, you'd have to touch a tiny triangle in the corner of the scroll view, with a stylus, to scroll... :-) When I gave my mom an iPad, which already came with the fancy new thin flat iOS design, I ha…

iOS 6 was the pinnacle of iOS UI discoverability. I'm still baffled at some of their decisions. That slide-to-unlock element was perfection. It never needed to change because you almost certainly can't do any better (OK, sure, using the home button to trigger unlock now is better, but as far as on the screen unlock initiators, that's it). Any kid or oldster immediately understood it. And 3d-ish buttons are a thing for a reason. It's gotten a little better since the WTF-is-this-shit days of iOS7, but not much.

It went from "what should my grandma use? Definitely an iPad, no question" to "what should my grandma use? Ugh, god, a Chromebook I guess?"

Now force-touch, and new gestures, and crap sliding from the top and bottom of the screen, on top of everything else. It's much easier to get lost in for someone who's half-terrified of computers, which is still lots of people, and I'm not sure it's much better for the rest of us, either.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#36

Post by carsongross »

beaconstudios wrote: post #29
carsongross wrote: post #6

The UX world has gone so far backwards, regardless of age, in the last five years it's hard to know where to begin: flat design, washed out colors, thin fonts, buttons that look like badges that look like input boxes that look like borders, modals that take over the entire screen with only a faint x in the upper right corner to indicate what is going on, input fields with internal labels that disappear as soon as any…

flat design and washed-out colours are great compared to the graphics-and-rounded-edges horror that we used to contend with. Everything else, I agree with - especially around indistinct controls. Modals are fine as long as they have a clear shadow background and there's some kind of cancellation button on the main modal - and also, pressing ESC or clicking the shadow should close a modal. That's just UX 101.

> flat design and washed-out colours are great compared to the graphics-and-rounded-edges horror that we used to contend with

See my sibling comment: flat UI improved default aesthetics but hurt UX. We should have retained simulated depth (and higher contrasts for important UI elements) for the usability advantages. It was a matter of refining what we had, rather than tossing it all out.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#37

Post by giardini »

adrianN wrote: post #20
Swizec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a limit, though. I end up browsing most modern websites at ~120% zoom when I'm tired, because it's more comfortable. Lay back in chair, still read comfortably. There's so much wasted whitespace it usually doesn't even break the layout. I'm 29 and my eyesight with glasses is ok. Been wearing 'em for 22 years. But really the worst offenders are gray text on lighter gray background websites. Whyyyy designers why…

The less a website changes when I turn on Reader Mode in Firefox, the more I like the website.

But Reader Mode is not always available.

I've settled into using the menu option "View..Page Style...No Style" on noisy pages.

Now I need a "No Style" browser that finds the beginning of the narrative automatically.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#38

Post by erehweb »

ryanar wrote: post #27

The article focuses on over 55s who have money to spend online. I liked the part that spoke to how 40 year olds and up are less likely to explore a website and more likely to abandon a task. I run into this a lot when I watch how my older users interact with our site. They act like they are about to hit the nuke button when performing some actions on the site, and I am sitting there thinking it is totally fine, even…

Suggestion - have a reasonably prominent button that restores defaults (or whatever the analogue is). This is often a headache when dealing with systems - easy to get into a situation where not obvious how to get back - e.g. window minimized and can't find it again.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#39

Post by lloydtl »

boomlinde wrote: post #30

As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen and screws scrolling up (because for some reason it should follow through my scrolling but somehow only be visible when scrolling upwards), but a faux-chat window overlaying the content where a Tom is asking me how he can help me. Not at all, thank you. At least…

I personally think Tom is great. But then I am him.

Re: Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

#40

Post by a3n »

boomlinde wrote: post #30

As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen and screws scrolling up (because for some reason it should follow through my scrolling but somehow only be visible when scrolling upwards), but a faux-chat window overlaying the content where a Tom is asking me how he can help me. Not at all, thank you. At least…

> As sort of a sidenote: websites about UX seem to have the worst UX. Clicking the link, I'm not only met by a social sharing bar that uses 1/6th of the screen

This comment anecdotally reinforces my impression that UX people today (I assume you're either a UX people, or a people interested in UX) have a bias for full-width sites and browsers.

I rarely run my browser full-width (and I think many UX/UI designers rarely do anything else but full-width).

When I opened the page under discussion, I didn't see any social sharing bar at all, just editorial content. And when I read your comment I went "huh?" And then "oh."

So I full-widthed my browser, and saw what you're complaining about. (I didn't notice any scrolling problems. And I didn't notice a popup; that may be because of my adblocking addons.)

As far as I'm concerned, this site exhibits very good UX for this particular aspect of the site. If the browser isn't wide enough to display the sidebar, it gets moved to below the editorial content. That's so refreshingly respectful!

Most often I see "beautiful" sites that have to be sidescrolled if the browser isn't full-width. I do two things in that situation:

1. I turn off styles, which then makes everything flow within the viewport (It's 1990 again!) and moves all the blocks to the order that they appear in the html. Because all I care about are words and pictures, not features. Again, in this site's case that works fabulously, because the site makers ordered their blocks so that editorial content is first; abcnews.com is a good example where, if you turn off styles, the content of interest doesn't appear until you scroll way down the page.

2. Or I leave.

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