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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)

#21

Post by babypuncher »

SoftTalker wrote: post #9
somanyphotons wrote: post #6

2026: Car makers include a moist page-turning-sponge on dashboard cluster

I know most people just buy what is available but I hope there's continued pushback on touch screens in cars. They're terrible.

I think touchscreens are great in cars as long as they aren't used to replace physical controls. I bought a new Ford Maverick last year and it follows this guidance well. I can still do all the important stuff like skip tracks, tune the radio, change volume, all from both the steering wheel and a cluster of physical knobs and buttons below the touchscreen.

The touchscreen is useful for less common and more intricate tasks like GPS navigation.

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

#22

Post by conradev »

bloopernova wrote: post #8

Also those damnable single button interfaces to earbuds, vapes, etc. Older people can have trouble double clicking, it's even more difficult for them to "click 5 times rapidly", and to remember exactly where they are in a UI that has almost no outputs. Hopefully as Gen-X ages, we'll see more thought put into this problem.

The iPhone has settings for physical button click speed for this reason. It's not just the elderly, but really any sort of motor difficulty. It takes a lot of force!

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

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

lukan wrote: post #4
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…

It was a topic here on HN before. Consensus was, it has to do with the moisture of the skin. Older people have drier skin, so worse touchscreen response.

I worked for a company that used a touchscreen, with a user population that skewed older. We thought it was poor circulation, not just dry skin.

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

#24

Post by 01100011 »

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…

Mom is almost 82. Just bought her an iPad to try because the computer was getting difficult to use with her essential tremor. Setting it up was a nightmare because I didn't spend the money for a model with face id. She had to keep touching(but not clicking!) the fingerprint reading button on the side. Training her fingerprint was also a nightmare because of Apple's surprisingly bad decision to require you to click a pop-up dialog whenever you fail to position your finger properly, unlike Android where you just try again.

I think the touchscreen was the least of her problems. A virtual keyboard with bigger keys would be nice. Not sure if that's an option on Apple though.

I'm not convinced she'll have much luck with the iPad, so if anyone has suggestions for an elderly person to stay connected, let me know.

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

#25

Post by dredmorbius »

SoftTalker wrote: post #9
somanyphotons wrote: post #6

2026: Car makers include a moist page-turning-sponge on dashboard cluster

I know most people just buy what is available but I hope there's continued pushback on touch screens in cars. They're terrible.

Legislation (fairly unlikely in the US under present trends) or massive and compelling lawsuits and settlements are far more likely to generate results.

I'm going to mention again the 1967 interview by Studs Terkel of Ralph Nader in which Nader details a prior round of reforms, largely involving safety, and the automobile industry:

https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...>

Direct audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3)

As much advances as have been made, the dynamics which lead to Nader's initial campaign are still intrinsic to the capitalist-market model, and the behaviours are highly evident not only in the automobile industry but the high-tech world and much of the rest of industry as well.

(The Studs Terkel broadcast and archive at WFMT/Chicago are both absolute gems of the current Internet: https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/>. This is a compilation of forty-five years worth of near-daily interviews with artists, activists, politicians, and most of all, ordinary people, Studs's true subject and audience.)

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

#26

Post by margalabargala »

bloopernova wrote: post #8

Also those damnable single button interfaces to earbuds, vapes, etc. Older people can have trouble double clicking, it's even more difficult for them to "click 5 times rapidly", and to remember exactly where they are in a UI that has almost no outputs. Hopefully as Gen-X ages, we'll see more thought put into this problem.

Not defending the interfaces here, they do suck, but the elderly definitely aren't the target market for vapes. It's not unsurprising that they're not designed with them in mind.

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

#27

Post by legitster »

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 directions for you. You will be unceremoniously dumped out of the conversation and into some sort of hellish afterthought experience.

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

#28

Post by jeffbee »

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.

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

#29

Post by lukan »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #23
lukan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a topic here on HN before. Consensus was, it has to do with the moisture of the skin. Older people have drier skin, so worse touchscreen response.

I worked for a company that used a touchscreen, with a user population that skewed older. We thought it was poor circulation, not just dry skin.

Blood circulation?

That might be the reason for less moisture, but the physical reason for the sensor not registering would be rather a lack of moisture (so no current), I believe.

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

#30

Post by jeffbee »

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…

"Pull up directions" is something I feel my phone is extremely good at. What phone are you using?
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