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Generation UX – How to make websites age-friendly

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

#51

Post by vogt »

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 a UX designer I have seen a lot of this stuff over the years and I always find it funny. DesignerNews.com, which is an imitation of this site, is chock full of articles like this.

The big thing to understand is a lot of people in The Blogosphere(TM) who post articles about UX don't really give a rip about anything other than the pageviews whether it's for ad revenue, establishing themselves as a thought leader, or trying to market their company. Even worse, there are some people who don't even ACTUALLY know much about UX, they just want to post an article about it to spread around LinkedIn and seem relevant by harping about the importance of UX, etc.

Having said all that, if you sift through all the garbage there are some great resources. Some of the big players in the space tend to do it well. InVision's blog, for example. UXPin are pretty good. There are lots of little ones like UXPowerTools' content marketing emails that are starting to do a good job as well.

At this point as someone who is always trying to improve as a UX designer, I have become accustomed to vetting the 100:1 ratio of garbage articles to bad ones.

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

#52

Post by a3n »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #47
a3n wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> have a bias for full-width sites and browsers. Ah, of course. He's using it wrong!

No, not at all. If he doesn't like it, then he doesn't like it, I can't disagree with that at all.

My point is that the page builders consciously thought of this part, and came up with a reasonable and accommodating design, which I (a narrow-width user) only noticed because of the comment.

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

#53

Post by kaycebasques »

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.

That's a good point that I've never thought about. I don't work on Maps but I can forward this to the team.

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

#54

Post by boomlinde »

a3n wrote: post #40
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…

Good UX, in my book, would be omitting the information in the sidebar altogether, because it somehow manages to be less relevant to the content than the pointless stock photos that illustrate it. I don't care that the article was shared 59 times, and the fact that I can share it on social networks is not mind blowing enough to me that I have to be reminded of it by a bar popping in and out of view like a mole throughout the whole article. Neither are the cool icons or Tom's helpful tone. What would I even need your help with, Tom?

It's also important to note that the bar of social network icons are not below the editorial content shere they would dwell on any remotely useful website, but on top of it. The design feels almost contemptful of its audience. My experience as a user is that I am disrespected and hated.

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

#55

Post by jorvi »

nailer wrote: post #15
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.

Also the angle you're facing is a mid blue triangle, and it's the same color of mid blue as the route. Additionally the mid blue for the route obscures the street name. Also 'Home' works on some GMaps but will take you to Home hardware, the Home Office etc in other versions. Basically Google Maps is a summary of Google itself: the best data and pretty damn poor UX.

Type `ho`, stop there, and it will suggest your home location (if you have it set). Continue typing and it will serve up results that have `home` somewhere in the name. Its typical Google, I can imagine an engineer going 'hmm, this way if they want to go to their actual home location, they can just tap on it, and if they continue typing, they can quickly find home depot!" not realizing this blatantly violates the Principle of Least Astonishment. You see the same with Android 7.0 in the pulldown quicksettings: if you haven't fully pulled down the quicksettings, a tap on Wi-Fi turns it off. But if you pull it down completely, a tap suddenly opens a network selection menu, despite the icon giving no indication it will do something different. This again, violates POLA. Its purely a power user feature (how often is a normal person gonna be on a Wi-Fi network that isn't already set..?). Even worse is that some icons (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) act in this 'dual' way, yet some others keep working the same (Torch, Orientation Lock). Obviously Torch and Orientation Lock don't really have any options beside on/off so they shouldn't have a menu.. its just that, from an UX perspective, its better if all your buttons act in a homogenous way, especially if they look the same! These are all typical examples of Google being a company with engineering in its DNA, whereas Apple is a company that breathes design.

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

#57

Post by wtfishackernews »

denzil_correa wrote: post #43
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.

Off topic but does anyone else feel that Google Maps (and in general Maps) have just regressed in quality? In particular, while using directions. The most common problem I face on my iPhone (and I've heard the same from people using Android) is - compass orientation. It's so predictably bad that I have now started moving the opposite direction which the compass suggests. I'm more right than wrong when I do so. This w…

This is not the app's fault. The compass sometimes needs to be re-calibrated and that involves waving your phone around. The app should prompt you to do so if it thinks the calibration is off though...

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

#58

Post by dec0dedab0de »

jpmattia wrote: post #32

Something that should have been explicit on the vision topic: Disabling pinch-zoom guarantees some fraction of people with vision issues (of all ages) are just going to disengage.

Agreed, I wish the browser would just not allow this to be disabled.

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

#59

Post by matrix »

Pxtl wrote: post #33
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.

Sure, but I think the font should be (to some extent) scaled proportionally to the map area or perhaps some other way of making the text larger. A typical use case for me is zooming in on a highway to see what exit number a particular ramp is. Today that info is basically unreadable on either platform.

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

#60

Post by boomlinde »

lloydtl wrote: post #39
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.

Do you personally introduce yourself to every visitor? If not, you're probably not the Tom I met.
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