11–20 of 154 posts
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.
I speculate whether this observation indicates that most of the chatter around "design" is signaling focused on appearing hip/trendy -- largely a branding effort overlaid on top of company goals, rather than an effort to think through actual user needs from the ground up. That would explain why so much of the focus is on fads.
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.
“You’re looking at it wrong.”
For the increasing number of people who have cataract surgery, the eye’s lenses have ben replaced with plastic, which usually have a fixed focus. (Artificial lenses that can be focused are under development.)
My dad recently had cataract surgery and I just assumed he was getting would be a deformable lens that would give him the ability to focus again. Does anyone know why it is so hard to develop such a lens ? As far as medical breakthroughs it seems like low hanging fruit and most people over the age of 45 could benefit from such a surgery since that is the age at which our lenses begin to harden and can no longer be shaped by our ciliary muscles.
Thoughtless design is everywhere. My company uses Discord for comms and I’m active in several Discord communities, but my vision impaired co-worker isn’t. Not because of a lack of want, but because Discord has been coasting on accessible design for years. https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/4tn00z/when_wil... Everything takes more resources than we expect, but surely a theme for their client (we do have some…
My team spends about a quarter of our time working strictly on accessibility, and we find ourselves straying from the beaten path often in order to accommodate a specific screenreader/OS combo. We run into situations all the time where we're unable to get insight from the docs because something is buried deep in the spec.
We also have to draw a line in the sand about which screenreaders to support and which ones to pass on, which pisses off clients that use screenreaders that we don't support.
Automated accessibility audit results sometimes contradict documentation around best practices, which can be frustrating.
The other thing I've learned is that developers usually hate working on accessibility issues because the screenreaders are much less intuitive to use and can really muck up your workflow if you're trying to ensure that an interface is completely accessible.
While I agree that we as a community can do better, I think that web accessibility in its current form is largely a failure because people see it as a cost that they're not interested in incurring, possibly because of the issues I've listed above.
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.
Tip: take a photo and view it in the photo app on your phone or desktop. It is often much easier to read then. If it is not, it can often be made so by playing with the editing options.
This also often works with things like power bricks that sometimes have the specs "printed" in raised plastic with no coloring to distinguish it from the rest of the case.
I speculate whether this observation indicates that most of the chatter around "design" is signaling focused on appearing hip/trendy -- largely a branding effort overlaid on top of company goals, rather than an effort to think through actual user needs from the ground up. That would explain why so much of the focus is on fads.
There is a hive mind of designers, but one must follow this hive mind to remain relevant. It is actually the case that skeuomorphic design, all the rage less than a decade ago, would be a turnoff to users today. Now, could this be because people associate good design with successful new products, and those new products have happened to use a different UI mentality for no other reason than signaling to a design-minded…
Thought provoking article. One difficult thing to grapple with here though is that my impression of the elderly is that the bulk of them are living on a tight budget to make sure that their retirement savings last them through their remaining years. Well designed, hip and beautiful products typically come at a hefty premium (think Apple tax). How many elderly people are willing to pay a premium for good, user friendl…
Regarding a comment the author made in passing: For the increasing number of people who have cataract surgery, the eye’s lenses have ben replaced with plastic, which usually have a fixed focus. (Artificial lenses that can be focused are under development.) My dad recently had cataract surgery and I just assumed he was getting would be a deformable lens that would give him the ability to focus again. Does anyone know…
Not in medicine or medical research, so great grains of salt required.
1) immune rejection
2) non-degradable
3) same modulus of elasticity as a biological lens (and maintains elasticity)
4) (relatively) cheap source materials
5) (relatively) cheap manufacture
6) survive all testing; up to FDA approval
Can anyone in medicine comment on this?
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.
Apple's online documentation pages have also tended to be light grey fonts on white. My eyes would ache trying to read them. I find their choices baffling. It's like they were so focused on design they forgot about people simply wanting to read it.