Don Norman on how design fails older consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#151

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, May 12, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #148

marcosdumay wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature settings have famously bad controllers. I guess it's because they are new, and car designers didn't have time to compete on quality of those yet. You can control the radio of any high-end 00's car without looking at the controls.

Back in the early 70s, before the energy _crisis_ when the speed limit had never been reduced below 70, everybody went 90 (and I passed everybody). Auto air conditioning was a great luxury to have, especially in the deep south on a multi-hour tollway through wilderness with no exits for miles on either side of the pavement. Of course gasoline was still commonly available with over 100 octane rating for prices less ex…

Well, by late 90's and early 00's, designers where exploiting the all-electronic properties of radio systems so that the driver could operate them not only without looking, but also without taking the hands out of the wheel. Yet, those 70's temperature controls would still be as good as the state of the art.

There was evolution. But it only happened when manufacturers would lose market share if they didn't do something that doesn't suck.

By its turn, nowadays cars are making it so that drivers must take their eyes out of the road to even look at the fucking speed indicator. We have seen some incredibly quick technology loss.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#152

Post by Causality1 » Sun, May 12, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

__alias wrote: post #57

Causality1 wrote: post #49

For some reason companies hate text now. Instead of a menu, you get icons with as minimalistic a design and as little difference between them as possible. Entering your user name and password is two separate pages for some reason now. Window borders have disappeared so instead of knowing at a glance where you can click and drag you have to closely watch your mouse pointer change. A big "Hewwo 2 U!" screen is added be…

I for one like the material minimalistic menu items we get now. (Assuming they use standard material design icons) it makes it quickly recognisable and accessible.

If you use them constantly. For example, most of my Gmail use is on an android device, which has a radically different UI than the web mail. When I use the web mail, probably once a month or so, I have to use tool tips every time because I've forgotten which tiny grey on grey button is reply, which is spam, etc.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#153

Post by gubbrora » Mon, May 13, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #137

gubbrora wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a big clunky deskphone. I have yet to make or receive a call on it. The desk real estate it occupies is a bigger cost to me than however many seconds I can eventually save.

This is about things we actually use, and their bad usability when your senses decline with age. If you really used that clunky phone, you'd appreciate how at hand it is, and how fast it is to use compared to a cell phone, specially when you desk calls are short.

A lot of things that are actually used are used rarely. Maybe I will use that phone eventually. Optimization should take rare/casual usage into account.

Re: Don Norman on how design fails older consumers

#154

Post by m463 » Mon, May 13, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

EricE wrote: post #34

m463 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set triple-click on my iphone to magnifier. Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Magnifier -> On Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut -> Magnifier (of course those settings are somewhat inaccessi... well you know...)

This - should be a card in the box on top of the iPhone explaining magnifier. So incredibly useful!

I think accessibility should be part of the setup menu.

Maybe even required by law - imagine a small-fine-print license agreement during setup that you cannot read.