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I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

kopiascsaba.hu

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Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#81

Post by Kwpolska »

szszrk wrote: post #54
Kwpolska wrote: post #51

You talk about the chicken-and-egg problem when using a phone, but doesn't your course itself present one? To do the course, you need to have fairly good computer skills, and that assumes someone handles the purchase for you. How many seniors are actually in that position, and how many are completely lost when it comes to any digital devices?

I'm not sure how would you like author to address that. If a user is not able to navigate any computer, he won't even reach the course or any advertisement. He needs at least some help to start out. Also, to be fair, the site has a clear video that shows step-by-step process of ... purchasing the course. I think our senior population changes and there are plenty of them that had contact with desktop and touchscreen d…

A print book would be a fine way to address the problem. While this book won’t be able to show video, it could still do a lot with text and screenshots. And then, videos could be moved into the companion app.

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#82

Post by nprateem »

kcsaba2 wrote: post #33
ericra wrote: post #20

I genuinely think this is a great thing to offer and very much needed. Great work. Your ffmpeg tutorial also looks really interesting, and I'll definitely be checking that out when I have time. But please consider removing or changing that huge cookie banner on the main page. The amount of people that will simply choose to not interact with the site at all and X out immediately when seeing this might be higher than y…

Thank you so much for your feedback, someone before you already mentioned the cookie banner thing, and I was just working on it. Although can't remove but made it way smaller.

It's for comments like the above that this is a terrible place to ask for feedback on what you've done.

I don't think people realise how much of a weird bubble this site is. Take the comments above about how you like learning stuff but most people don't:

That means WE'RE the weird ones, not most people!

The last thing you want is people like us giving feedback. Also the F-Droid stuff... I mean come on.

Your target market is clueless. They don't care about cookies banners, advanced customisation, software freedoms, etc. They just want to message their grandkids online and are probably terrified of being scammed out of their savings. They probably don't like change or learning complicated new things either.

But hey, I'm not one. Go and speak to your market and see what they want, if anything. And ignore 95% of comments here. Most people aren't as paranoid as techies.

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#83

Post by lastdong »

doublepg23 wrote: post #75
atoav wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the law didn't invent cookie banners, people who (intentionally mis-)interpreting the law did. Then in the public eye it got reduced to "You need a cookie banner" and people jumped on the bandwagon, because other sides had them so apparently you need to have them too. Many of those cookie banners are factually at odds with current EU law. But hey everything is a cargo cult these days. Legally the law is just…

If it’s factually at odds with current EU law why does the official EU website use them https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en

https://commission.europa.eu/cookies-policy_en#:~:text=Every....

‘Every time you visit the Commission’s websites, you will be prompted to accept or refuse cookies.

The purpose is to enable the site to remember your preferences (such as user name, language, etc.) for a certain period of time.’

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#84

Post by qwertox »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #79
qwertox wrote: post #45

I just watched the power phone on / off preview, and it has the issues which I assumed it would have. Long-press to turn on a powered-off phone is not a standard. Even I don't know how to turn these devices on, so I do a combination of multiple short presses, multiple long presses until it works. Powering the phone off via the button won't work on modern phones, since the hardware power button has become the tool to…

If you press it long enough, it will shutdown, even if you didn't touch anything in the assistant.

I just held it for around 25 seconds on a Pixel 8 and it did nothing (except for starting the assistant). I think if you hold it even longer then it does some kind of reset, which isn't a clean shutdown.

I don't mind the repurposing of the power button. I prefer it being used for something else, since I don't power it off very often.

The only thing which bothers me a bit in the repurposed state is that the power-off menu includes an emergency button, which is now hidden behind a couple of levels of swiping and clicking. And accessing it from the lock screen again varies among vendors.

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#85

Post by qwertox »

piltdownman wrote: post #64
qwertox wrote: post #45

I just watched the power phone on / off preview, and it has the issues which I assumed it would have. Long-press to turn on a powered-off phone is not a standard. Even I don't know how to turn these devices on, so I do a combination of multiple short presses, multiple long presses until it works. Powering the phone off via the button won't work on modern phones, since the hardware power button has become the tool to…

// Powering the phone off via the button won't work on modern phones, since the hardware power button has become the tool to invoke an assistant. ALL versions of Android OS allows you to set the power button back to power on long-press - you just have to go back into settings to change it; although the Pixel range had a recent update change to Gemini as default. Similar to the double-tap for quick camera.

I prefer it this way, long press = assistant, double press = camera. And I believe that the elderly would also prefer this, if they do actively use an assistant to ask questions.

I have hot-word detection turned off, so I think the button is a good compromise.

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#86

Post by kcsaba2 »

pempem wrote: post #41
kcsaba2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to:) And you know what the funny thing is, if i give the course for free, no-one watches it. I did reach out to several people in my friendship, gave them free the course just to get feedback. None of them watched it, so thats very, very surprising for me. Maybe i should go up to random strangers and PAY THEM in order to give them something that would benefit them - and maybe get some feedback:)) But on the…

It might be worth thinking of more natural partners like senior centers, libraries, etc. Maybe start with more of a open Q&A session and show them how to navigate the course to answer their questions. Such a tremendous amount of work, really Kudos! So cool.

Thank you so much! Indeed i will have a look into that as well!

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#87

Post by kcsaba2 »

meigwilym wrote: post #62
kcsaba2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to:) And you know what the funny thing is, if i give the course for free, no-one watches it. I did reach out to several people in my friendship, gave them free the course just to get feedback. None of them watched it, so thats very, very surprising for me. Maybe i should go up to random strangers and PAY THEM in order to give them something that would benefit them - and maybe get some feedback:)) But on the…

FREE SEMINAR ON SMARTPHONES! Come along for a coffee (free!) and a showing of a film that will teach you how to use your smartphone. Your grandkids will be bowled over by your new tech abilities! All we ask is for you to answer an anonymous questionnaire at the end. No need to give any personal details. === Or something like that...?

Yeah, my problem with all that is its 8hours long, showing just parts of it is not enough really. I'd like to hear from ones who really do it in its entirety. What they struggled with, aht aas good, what wss awful. Etc.

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#88

Post by kcsaba2 »

ranon wrote: post #42
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #38

I have to wonder if the Anglo-sphere elderly will struggle with your accent. It’s not too strong and I can understand, but for those that may be slightly hard if hearing and have less neuroplasticity maybe it would be an extra hurdle to using the guide.

Agreed. If I were to get my mom to try this course, the first thing she will comment on is that she can't understand the accent. Ironically her own accent is much stronger. She just isn't very tolerant when it comes to focusing on something.

Haha, yeah guys you are right, sadly not much I can do about it, esp. after the fact:) There are a ton of free previews so one can figure out if its for them or not.

I even mention at the end of the intro that if you can put up with my accent, you'll be good to go:)

Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly

#89

Post by kcsaba2 »

meowzor wrote: post #73
jacooper wrote: post #58

This is great! Are there any plans to translate it into other languages? With Ai it should be doable.

Yeah, this is something I'd be interested in if available in other languages!

Yeah, thank you for your interest! I've got some messages about that as well.

But first i'd like to see enouh traffic on the course in the most popular language available and then I'll consider putting more effort into it.

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