I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
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Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#2Teaching tech to elderly people is hard—many struggle with gestures, apps, or even turning their phones on. I built a course from scratch, covering every step from unboxing to apps. Along the way, I learned about video production, Android’s quirks, and marketing struggles.
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#3I love how exhaustive your approach to documentation is here, because (like you said) it really does need to be to be truly useful. If the user doesn't know how to get to "Contacts", saying "Start by opening Contacts" does them no good and just discourages them.
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#4Did you test your course on any elderly people as you were developing it? What did you learn from that, if so? Did it require changes that were surprising?
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#5Awesome. I recently had similar thoughts and then I was considering all the variations in the android eco system. Lots of times when I am helping I have to just rely ony intuition because I am not familiar with the specific flavour of android used by Samsung or whatever else sonone might have.
I will have a look at your material. Maybe I can localize it to my needs.
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#6[deleted]
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#7This is fantastic. I can think of a handful of people who I'd recommend this course for.
I have a question about something I noticed in "Preview of 03.07. Finding & launching apps" - In this lesson, what you refer to as the "desktop" is something I typically refer to as "home screen" - Is "desktop" really the preferred way to describe that screen?
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#8To clarify: this is how to use the phone, the Android OS. Not develop for Android.
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#9Teaching tech to elderly people is hard—many struggle with gestures, apps, or even turning their phones on. I built a course from scratch, covering every step from unboxing to apps. Along the way, I learned about video production, Android’s quirks, and marketing struggles.
thanks,
here are a couple of links to the course:
https://smartphonehowto.com/gift/ - "Save time & help your loved ones" - for people who might want to introduce this course to someone they know
https://smartphonehowto.com/ - "Stay connected with family and friends" - for people who might want to take this course
Re: I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
#10This is fantastic. I can think of a handful of people who I'd recommend this course for. I have a question about something I noticed in "Preview of 03.07. Finding & launching apps" - In this lesson, what you refer to as the "desktop" is something I typically refer to as "home screen" - Is "desktop" really the preferred way to describe that screen?
Thank you, it's an honor you think that!
I don't know of any higher authority on what to call it actually. Technically that "app" (it is an android app just like any other) is called a launcher, i went with desktop, but I also like home screen, and I think I probably use these terms interchangeably in the course.
(You actually can install a different launcher if you are not happy with yours.)