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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)

#111

Post by lelandbatey »

_yb2s wrote: post #41
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…

Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control, but never critical vehicle functions. Things like hazard lights and HVAC should be illegal to be on touch screens.

Add "turning on the windshield wipers" and "indicating with your blinker" to that list. Looking at you Tesla with your death-trap touch screen controls.

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

#112

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

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…

Consumer Reports refers to it as "zombie finger syndrome" (https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-fing...) so it seems to be fairly common.

A rather expensive workaround is an Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro but it's out of reach for most people.

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

#113

Post by m463 »

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…

Too late. Tesla has set the example of removing the turn signal and drive selector stalks. I believe there is a law that the emergency flashers need a physical control, which is why teslas have a dedicated button.

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

#114

Post by _yb2s »

lelandbatey wrote: post #111
_yb2s wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be fine for non-critical entertainment systems which nowadays also take voice control, but never critical vehicle functions. Things like hazard lights and HVAC should be illegal to be on touch screens.

Add "turning on the windshield wipers" and "indicating with your blinker" to that list. Looking at you Tesla with your death-trap touch screen controls.

You have to use a touch screen for those on a Tesla? If true that is asinine, those cars aren't safe to drive.

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

#115

Post by jeffbee »

BeetleB wrote: post #109
jeffbee wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn't have to. They had their entire adult lives to build a society where you don't need a car, a society welcoming and useful to the old, the young, the disabled, and the poor. And they blew it!

> They had their entire adult lives to build a society where you don't need a car, a society welcoming and useful to the old, the young, the disabled, and the poor. And they blew it! And ... you won't?

Correct.

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

#116

Post by bcrl »

jeffbee wrote: post #28
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…

We shouldn't have 89-year-old drivers in cars, either. Full stop. In my city we've had three pedestrian fatalities in less than a year and all the drivers were aged 79 or older.

Depends on the 89 year old. Some are as sharp as a tack, while others don't have a clue where they are let alone what they are currently doing. If you don't understand that, you clearly need to widen the range of people you interact with beyond your day to day experiences thus far in life.

I am in the middle of watching my own parents age, and it is eye opening. We have checks and balances in various systems exactly because there is a wide range of capabilities in the elderly. Where I live it is mandatory for drivers to be tested regularly once they hit 80, or at even earlier ages in the event of an accident or other precipitating event. This can include recommendation by doctors, social workers or even police. This works without needlessly discriminating against individuals.

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

#117

Post by bcrl »

moi2388 wrote: post #96
ballenf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory regular (every 5-10 years) driving tests seem like a no-brainer regardless of age. Also seems like the driving tests should be more stringent.

Oh no, much more often. People above 70 can deteriorate really, really quickly. I’d say yearly tests which include doctors checkups and actually driving with them.

Anyone can deteriorate quickly. My sister (mid-40s) was in a hospital for 3.5 weeks before Christmas due to an infection that rapidly progressed into sepsis. Even now 2 months later she still needs to use a cane to walk around and is out of breath climbing a single flight of stairs. Bodies are remarkably fragile. From initial onset of symptoms to septic shock was less than 24 hours.

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

#118

Post by bcrl »

joezydeco wrote: post #52

I'm an older adult that's worked on touch interfaces and whatnot. I don't blame the touch mechanism as much as I blame all the UX designers that adopted Material design schemas and their descendents. Bad layouts, unreadable fonts, horrible color schemes and literally NO contrast between type and background. It's apparent that none of this was tested on older users. Apple is just as guilty of this. If you switch your…

Gnome with Enlightenment back in 1999 had configurable window decorations. If you wanted a border around a window that was a few pixels wider and easier to land a mouse on, you could do that.

Naturally all of that functionality was thrown out when the Gnome project did a total rewrite that was "going to make everything better" and "fix all of the problems" they ran into in the first version.

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

#119

Post by bcrl »

legitster wrote: post #27

One thing to add to this, it's amazing that in 2025 voice assistants still suck so badly. You'd think this is a problem AI could finally nip in the bud. But even giving my phone the dumbest of instructions will result in an agonizing back and forth where it doesn't hear me quite right and constantly has to repeat back things. Heaven forbid you ask the phone to do anything useful like change a setting or pull up direc…

Siri was better in the past while driving, and actually helpful at times. Nowadays it demands that I unlock my phone. My mistake? My car doesn't have Car Play. I drove a rental last week and Car Play was far more cooperative. Sadly, it appears that I am being punished because I don't happen to be able to replace my car as often as I upgrade my phone.

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

#120

Post by dzhiurgis »

Liquix wrote: post #36
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…

that's the issue with industries like this.. no one asked for touchscreen controls, but they're cheaper and make the manufacturers more money. no one asked for their private conversations to be recorded and sold, but that juicy data is profitable. it's not like people can stop buying cars until the situation improves. joe q public can't be expected to start a grassroots movement and go lobby, he needs to get to work…

No one asked replacing horses, but…
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