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Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

fastcompany.com

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Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#121

Post by sjagoe »

llamathrowaway wrote: post #68
goldenkey wrote: post #63

Isn't it moreso that old people are daft and impatient? I am nearly 30 and can figure out systems, both new and old, and find that patience and faith is vitally important. I notice my parents don't even bother to explore the menus or dropdowns or well..much of anything, before they demand to be helped. It's gonna be very hard to sell me on menus being ageist. I hope you can read my frustration..

If you’re ‘nearly 30’ then it’s likely you grow up with modern gadgets, and since you are on HN there is a higher chance that you have a stronger than average interest in electronics. Your parents did not grow up like you. They grew up in a time when a few knobs is all you need to operate a home appliance. And they are probably more interested in what’s being played on TV, rather than the TV itself. The complexity of…

> The complexity of today’s electronics and softwares is getting out of control.

I saw this illustrated in motorcycle dashboards a few weeks ago. I have a nice analogue speedometer and tachometer, with a small digital display showing a couple of useful things like trip distance counter. Reset the trip counter by holding down one button on the dash.

My father just got the new model of essentially the same motorcycle, with an all-digital dash. Resetting the trip counter requires digging into a menu three to four levels deep, and as you say, it took us a while to explore and find the option, with some disbelief at the apparent step backward in usability.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

logicprog wrote: post #108
Moru wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And make the driver look at a screen to adjust temperature / fan or whatever.

I already have to look at the knobs in my car to see what I'm doing with them (or even find them in the first place). Is this true for anyone else? I'm reading this thread totally unable to understand what we are arguing about haha.

I don't think it's true for many others. The ability to operate a device without looking at the controls is one of the biggest features of old-school "dumb", physical controls. I guess you don't have to look at your feet to find the car pedals, or at your seat to find the gear lever and manual brake.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#123

Post by rsync »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #50
marnett wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I think it’s more about pricing as oppposed to better design paradigms. Replacing embedded system engineers with cheap java engineers? Yea that requires a screen.

Similar to capacitive touch panels on appliances. You'd think this sci-fi look is more expensive to make, but it's actually cheaper. The "buttons" have no moving parts.

"Similar to capacitive touch panels on appliances. You'd think this sci-fi look is more expensive to make, but it's actually cheaper."

This is correct and will drive style and purchasing decisions for the affluent in the future, if it isn't already.

A home full of wifi-connected "smart" appliances all (failing) to talk to one another will be a sign of poverty while a big hulking Traulsen[1] with no digital innards will (continue to) be a sign of wealth.

High end auto interior design, while currently dabbling with big silly (and obviously poorly designed) touchscreen interfaces, in an attempt to seem tesla-ish, will catch up as well.

[1] https://www.traulsen.com/

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#124

Post by sctb »

goldenkey wrote: post #63

Isn't it moreso that old people are daft and impatient? I am nearly 30 and can figure out systems, both new and old, and find that patience and faith is vitally important. I notice my parents don't even bother to explore the menus or dropdowns or well..much of anything, before they demand to be helped. It's gonna be very hard to sell me on menus being ageist. I hope you can read my frustration..

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19885436.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#125

Post by kps »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #117
dr_dshiv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me, or do TVs have the WORST user experience of all tech? Somehow, they can get away with it. I've always wanted a consumer electronics brand that was known specifically for usability. For commodity tech, like TVs, radios, monitors, music, I don't want the most impressive specs -- I want a brand that means "we will be easier to use than the other brands". Choosing between Panasonic, Sony, LG, etc etc.. it'…

Isn't Apple that brand? I don't use their products much, but my impression is that they have that reputation.

The article has a paragraph on Apple, with a link to an earlier full article: https://www.fastcompany.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-desi...

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#126

Post by sctb »

gliop wrote: post #93
eigenspace wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s a shallow analysis. The difference is that college students expect to make more money in the future so they don’t put any thought into stretching their dollar. Retirees are the opposite. They may have bigger bank accounts, but for most of them, they know that’s all they’ll ever get.

My neighbor is a widower schoolteacher who gets discounts on things including property taxes on her mansion because of that, despite being multimillionaire by marit inheritance and receiving social security benefits young people can only dream of (and no college loan debt, of course). The "fixed income" cry is just a ploy old people use to get discounts.

When we talk about substantiveness, what we mean is that we want commenters to post information that has a reasonable trail back to our shared reality (another commenter here sometimes uses the phrase “connect the dots”). Anecdotes can be interesting and valuable, but they don't form a basis for such broad claims as you've made. So if you want to share an anecdote just share the anecdote, and if you want to make a claim please back it up with substantial evidence—and do so with consideration.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#127

Post by js2 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #73
js2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s horrible. Let me recommend 1BlockerX: https://ibb.co/yNQ4T08 Or use Safari reader mode. Or both.

I wouldn’t recommend 1Blocker. I had it and was disappointed at how they rarely (if ever?) update their filter lists (they’re also not using the standard lists like EasyList). AdGuard Pro is much better and supports standard lists like EasyList and Fanboy’s lists, along with region-specific lists and DNS-based blocking (so blocks ads/cancer in non-browser contexts too).

I’ve been using 1Blocker for a long time since back when there where few choices and it was clearly the best option. I like that it syncs with my desktop and use it with Safari on macOS too. I also like that it’s easy to whitelist sites, that it’s easy to block elements of specific sites, and that it’s an indie app.

I think the reason for not using the full EasyList is that Safari limits the number of content blocker rules to 50k, less than can accommodate the full EasyList. I wonder how AGP gets around that.

In any case, I rarely see ads with 1Blocker. The one thing it doesn’t block reliably is ad blocker detection, but I’m not sure that’s even possible for a Safari content blocker to do.

Looking at the App Store, I see there are a lot of blockers now. How did you decide on AGP over the others?

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#129

Post by jodrellblank »

ghaff wrote: post #111
dr_dshiv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me, or do TVs have the WORST user experience of all tech? Somehow, they can get away with it. I've always wanted a consumer electronics brand that was known specifically for usability. For commodity tech, like TVs, radios, monitors, music, I don't want the most impressive specs -- I want a brand that means "we will be easier to use than the other brands". Choosing between Panasonic, Sony, LG, etc etc.. it'…

I honestly don't find TVs that hard to use--but then I don't try to use "Smart TV" features, which are indeed pretty bad across the board. I mostly just use a Chromecast--a much underappreciated device--and my tablet or laptop. Hopefully Google doesn't discontinue it when they get bored in a year or two.

Is there a term for comments which are indistinguishable from astroturfing? A kind of Poe's Law of advertising?

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#130

Post by kps »

RyJones wrote: post #9

I characterize this as "all PMs have perfect eyes and skin". The first iteration of the Microsoft Surface featured a micro SD slot that was unusable if you had anything less than perfect, pliable finger nails. I cracked a nail so many times using that slot I gave up. Current generation Apple designers clearly have amazing vision: part numbers on light grey on white in microscopic fonts.

My current favourite example is the MDN page covering text contrast — https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/U... — which violates the rules it states. (As does practically all of MDN, but particularly the confetti-factory code samples.)
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