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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)

#31

Post by MrLeap »

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…

Some really nice haptics could mitigate this somewhat, but by the time you succeed at that where others have failed, why not just give me a knob.

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

#33

Post by yieldcrv »

01100011 wrote: post #24
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…

maybe in the accessibility settings for bigger keys

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

#34

Post by evanjrowley »

bee_rider wrote: post #13
AlotOfReading wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I was at NHTSA a decade ago. They were in talks to acquire a petabyte-size collection of videos of drivers' faces to study distraction, but there was no funding for a system that could hold it, so it never happened.

Unsure of what happened with that initiative, but I hope it gets revived. Today there are many great options for efficiently analyzing video. Storage is also cheaper.

Side Note: Last night I was driving home behind a guy whose phone was mounted to his dashboard and was playing some video on YouTube. While maneuvering to pass by him, I could clearly see his eyes locked on the phone screen instead of the road. At least with Android, maybe Google could create a safety feature that prevents both Maps and YouTube from running simultaneously.

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

#35

Post by VyseofArcadia »

MaximilianEmel wrote: post #20
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.

This would require a level of polish and sophistication that I have no reason to suspect car manufacturers would ever by capable of. I can only imagine making some sort of awkward swiping gesture while frequently glancing at the screen to verify that it worked.

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

#36

Post by Liquix »

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 to feed his four kids, which means he's buying whichever car is available. it's also impossible to vote with your wallet when every [0] auto company places profit above safety/functionality.

[0] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...

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

#37

Post by llamaimperative »

MaximilianEmel wrote: post #20
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.

Let’s start by making gestures preferable to buttons while sitting on a couch to control the TV channel okay buddy

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

#38

Post by prerok »

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 frequently have problems with some touch screens, because my fingers are too dry. Seems like some touch screens are better, i.e. I don't notice it at all, and some are intolerably bad.

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

#39

Post by nanomonkey »

Most of my current wants from devices, and mobile computing, overlap quite nicely with what aging communities need from their devices. Sunlight readable displays, buttons that are distinguishable by feeling alone (ever seen the button variety in the cockpit of jet fighters!!!), and the ability to customize outputs in a sane manner that isn't full of twelve layer deep menus of vague options that change with each software update.

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

#40

Post by VyseofArcadia »

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.

100% agree.
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