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Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

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Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#11

Post by yborg »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #3

This seems to be an real and important problem with capacitive touch screens. My elderly mother is often unable to make a touch register on recent Apple devices when a touch appears to have clearly happened and with reasonable force. She blames it on her fingers being "numb" but there genuinely seems to be a problem unrelated to her actions. (I've used the devices in question, and they appear to be fine. This is not…

Same thing with my octogenarian grandmother, her fingertips are often so dry the screen does not register the touch; she has arthritis and poor vision so hand-eye targeting is poor with the tiny touch areas many apps have even on a tablet; the lack of any tactile feedback exacerbates these issues, people this age didn't grow up with capacitive touch screens and the lack of sensation after an action is alien to them. She finds the iPad extremely frustrating.

What I found more surprising is that voice control isn't the solution, either. She is very reluctant to talk to Siri because it feels to her like there is an actual person there and she doesn't want to bother them. It would actually be better for her if you could choose a more robotic voice for Siri to make it seem more like a machine.

Not looking forward to getting older and having to interact with the brave new world that Big Tech will be bringing us. With some manufacturers you can't even drive a car without using a touchscreen -_-

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#13

Post by bee_rider »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #10
hindsightbias wrote: post #2

NHSTA must not have much of a human factors / UX group. Given the vast disparity of driving experiences in rented cars there must not be much in the way of regulation either. Big government indeed.

People misunderstand what NHTSA actually does. The core of NHTSA's job is to manage FMVSS (what makes a vehicle legal) and investigate safety issues in production vehicles. They don't approve vehicles in any way that matters here, and they avoid telling manufacturers how to do things properly. They also don't meaningfully regulate software or system usability. Those are left up to industry norms and "market forces" u…

They must have some research going into touchscreen enhanced distracted driving. But I guess they must not have gathered enough data pointing that way, or something?

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#14

Post by BeetleB »

n=17 (7 older adults). Fairly useless, IMO.

Having said that, I believe it's been very well documented that touch screens in cars are less usable than the button equivalents, and likely affect driving safety. The only new thing in this study is that it's just worse for older people. (Not that younger people are not impacted).

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#15

Post by rightbyte »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #3

This seems to be an real and important problem with capacitive touch screens. My elderly mother is often unable to make a touch register on recent Apple devices when a touch appears to have clearly happened and with reasonable force. She blames it on her fingers being "numb" but there genuinely seems to be a problem unrelated to her actions. (I've used the devices in question, and they appear to be fine. This is not…

I get the same problem when I work in the garden digging a lot. The skin gets thick and dry and touch screens start behaving strange. Not that I can't use them, but like the centre of the tap has an offset.

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#16

Post by mannycalavera42 »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #3

This seems to be an real and important problem with capacitive touch screens. My elderly mother is often unable to make a touch register on recent Apple devices when a touch appears to have clearly happened and with reasonable force. She blames it on her fingers being "numb" but there genuinely seems to be a problem unrelated to her actions. (I've used the devices in question, and they appear to be fine. This is not…

my 70-something parents both struggle and have to resort - not without disappointment and sadness - to capacitive pens

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#17

Post by VyseofArcadia »

We should NOT have touch screen interfaces in cars. Full stop. If the driver has to divert their gaze from the road to operate e.g. the heating/AC[0], that is a failure of UX sufficiently egregious to keep the car off the road. It is not a toy, it is not a fashion statement, it is a thousand pound chunk of steel that will indiscriminately kill and maim if not operated with care and diligence.

[0] This is the complaint I have with my wife's Honda Civic. If I want to do something as simple as turn on the fan but turn off the AC, it means navigating into a sub menu and correctly hitting one of several choices on a touch screen.

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#18

Post by kps »

lapcat wrote: post #12

My newer car has a touch screen for the radio channels, and I experience frequent difficulty changing the channels. This becomes impossible when I'm wearing gloves, which of course is often in a Midwest winter.

I keep a cheap stylus in the car in winter.

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#19

Post by lucideng »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #17

We should NOT have touch screen interfaces in cars. Full stop. If the driver has to divert their gaze from the road to operate e.g. the heating/AC[0], that is a failure of UX sufficiently egregious to keep the car off the road. It is not a toy, it is not a fashion statement, it is a thousand pound chunk of steel that will indiscriminately kill and maim if not operated with care and diligence. [0] This is the complain…

100% agree

Re: Older adults disproportionately hindered by touch screen interfaces (2023)

#20

Post by MaximilianEmel »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #17

We should NOT have touch screen interfaces in cars. Full stop. If the driver has to divert their gaze from the road to operate e.g. the heating/AC[0], that is a failure of UX sufficiently egregious to keep the car off the road. It is not a toy, it is not a fashion statement, it is a thousand pound chunk of steel that will indiscriminately kill and maim if not operated with care and diligence. [0] This is the complain…

While I much prefer physical buttons, I do think gestures could be made to work.
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