4 ms·

> and someone from 1994 would likeky have little trouble with windows 10, or even an iphone (after getting past the touchscreen). The touch screen is a huge th

> and someone from 1994 would likeky have little trouble with windows 10, or even an iphone (after getting past the touchscreen). The touch screen is a huge thing, that is like saying "after getting past the mouse" going from the 80s to the 90s. Can you imagine trying to teach someone from 1994 about an iPhone? "So you need to tap and hold on some UI elements. No there isn't an indication which ones, you just sorta guess and get used to it. Yeah like right clicking, except slower, and the menu options aren't consistent. Oh some other elements you tap, but you tap HARD on. Some elements you tap and hold hard on, and here is the manual for all the ways you can tap, double tap, tap and hold, and some other gestures, for that one single button you have. If you get a newer iPhone, the button is gone and instead there are just magic swipes you do from off screen in different directions and distances to get different behaviors." And then try explaining how the file system thing is all sorts of weird.

roywiggins 8y ago
I do remember taking a while to work out which things needed single clicks and which needed double clicks when I was first introduced to Windows 95. It was basically undiscoverable for me and I needed someone to tell me a) that double clicking existed and b) to start a program from the desktop I needed to double-click on the icons. I think until then I'd only ever used a Mac desktop, which didn't do the click-to-select thing.
toast0 8y ago
Wait, does the iPhone actually ha e a manual that tells you those things? Android and Windows phone basically don't have manuals, so I assumed iPhones don't either.
- com2kid 8y ago
  Apple's ad campaigns serve as their tutorials. Rather effective ones at that. Their ads always show off the newest interface changes, from the first iPhone ad showing off tapping and pinch to zoom to newer ads showing off force touch and swipe gestures.
Jtsummers 8y ago
Not 1994, but in 1997 we had the PalmPilot with a touch screen. Yes, with a stylus, but it existed. The iPhone would be different, but not magic.
- com2kid 8y ago
  PalmPilots were stupid simple to use though. IMHO they were about the height of portable device usability, just enough external buttons that it was possible to pull it out of your pocket and push the desired hotkey all with one smooth motion. I miss having my todo list on a PalmPilot. Talk about being super organized. When it comes to being organized, today's cell phones are a joke in comparison. Samsung ALMOST got it correct with the s-pen on the note, but they unpin notes from the lock screen after 10 minutes, and you have to do tap on the note a few times to edit it, you can't just write on the lock screen note with the s-pen. As an aside, I am incredibly irritated at how Samsung went 90% of the way to making an amazing productivity tool and then dropped the bloody ball. :/
  - hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
    IIRC, the creator of the Palm Pilot carried a block of wood around in his back pocket, pulling it out and imagining going through steps with it to work out the form factor and design of the applications. Also, I knew someone who continued to use Palm's Windows software as her primary calendar and organization software years after Palm had begun fading away, and despite having never owned a Palm device! It was hard to fault her for it, since it was fast and robust.
julianz 8y ago
The Newton came out in 1993, so the iPhone would be "like a Newton but you don't need the stylus and they got rid of the handwriting stuff"
setr 8y ago
tbh it can't be that difficult, no more so than teaching a video game without a tutorial. You have three primary inputs on an older iphone: tap, tap and hold, and home button. Additionally, zooming can be done with a "pinch" motion. Tell them that much and toss them the phone; they'll probably figure out 80% of its usage within 10 minutes. The hard part was done with the advent of the GUI: mapping physical input to digital movement on a 2D screen. The major change is that mouse has been replaced with your finger, but UX-wise its mostly the same. The main difficulty with the game is getting used to the controller, but even then conceptually its not that big of a leap from a mouse. Given that there is a _lot_ of room for mistakes, the fastest teaching is to just let them fuck around with it. The same as with a video game: hand them a controller and they'll figure out (most of) the rest. There's not that many things you can do with it. They'll mostly miss out on the non-essentials, as they reach a point where exploration is no longer explicitly necessary. I can't comment on the newer iphone, as I never used it, but the general rules are the same. If I can trust someone to figure out most of a game with a controller of 16 inputs, I can probably trust someone to figure out most an iphone with some 8. Maybe not your grandmother, but otherwise. In other words Once you understand the mouse, you understand everything (up to today)
Razengan 8y ago
The gestures in modern iOS really are a bizarre hodgepodge, a "mystery meat menu" if you will, and this is from someone who usually loves and defends Apple's UX decisions. on the iPad: - Notification Center: Swipe down from the center of the top edge. - Search: Swipe down anywhere on the Home Screen, away from the top edge. - Control Center: Swipe down from the top-right edge, but in that region a difference of a few pixels will either get you the Notification Center, Search, or pull out a secondary app from the side in Slide-Over Multitasking! - Multitasking: Slide-Over apps can be moved to the left side, but they cannot be swiped off the screen when they're on the left side; you have to throw them to the right side then swipe them off the right edge to dismiss them. This kind of shit is what people made (make) fun of Microsoft for. There's no way to look up the information for those controls except searching on the internet or when it [randomly] pops up in the Tips app. However, that the "file system is all sorts of weird" couldn't be further from the truth, and is only based on comparisons with document-centric systems. Everything is generally organized by apps, which can actually be more intuitive in many ways, especially to people who have no prior experience with computers, while iCloud Drive and the Files app still let you use document-centric workflows if you want to.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  As someone who has carried a modern Android phone and modern IOS for not quite a decade, I do agree that IOS has some very odd UX choices. The podcast app is like a puzzle game.
Corrado 8y ago
It might be similar to having someone from today work on an Apple Newton. Touchscreen and buttons are pretty familiar but the cursive recognition and things like the modem interface would be really weird.

roywiggins 8y ago

I do remember taking a while to work out which things needed single clicks and which needed double clicks when I was first introduced to Windows 95. It was basically undiscoverable for me and I needed someone to tell me a) that double clicking existed and b) to start a program from the desktop I needed to double-click on the icons. I think until then I'd only ever used a Mac desktop, which didn't do the click-to-select thing.

toast0 8y ago

Wait, does the iPhone actually ha e a manual that tells you those things? Android and Windows phone basically don't have manuals, so I assumed iPhones don't either.

com2kid 8y ago
Apple's ad campaigns serve as their tutorials. Rather effective ones at that. Their ads always show off the newest interface changes, from the first iPhone ad showing off tapping and pinch to zoom to newer ads showing off force touch and swipe gestures.

Jtsummers 8y ago

Not 1994, but in 1997 we had the PalmPilot with a touch screen. Yes, with a stylus, but it existed. The iPhone would be different, but not magic.

com2kid 8y ago
PalmPilots were stupid simple to use though. IMHO they were about the height of portable device usability, just enough external buttons that it was possible to pull it out of your pocket and push the desired hotkey all with one smooth motion. I miss having my todo list on a PalmPilot. Talk about being super organized. When it comes to being organized, today's cell phones are a joke in comparison. Samsung ALMOST got it correct with the s-pen on the note, but they unpin notes from the lock screen after 10 minutes, and you have to do tap on the note a few times to edit it, you can't just write on the lock screen note with the s-pen. As an aside, I am incredibly irritated at how Samsung went 90% of the way to making an amazing productivity tool and then dropped the bloody ball. :/
- hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
  IIRC, the creator of the Palm Pilot carried a block of wood around in his back pocket, pulling it out and imagining going through steps with it to work out the form factor and design of the applications. Also, I knew someone who continued to use Palm's Windows software as her primary calendar and organization software years after Palm had begun fading away, and despite having never owned a Palm device! It was hard to fault her for it, since it was fast and robust.

julianz 8y ago

The Newton came out in 1993, so the iPhone would be "like a Newton but you don't need the stylus and they got rid of the handwriting stuff"

setr 8y ago

tbh it can't be that difficult, no more so than teaching a video game without a tutorial. You have three primary inputs on an older iphone: tap, tap and hold, and home button. Additionally, zooming can be done with a "pinch" motion. Tell them that much and toss them the phone; they'll probably figure out 80% of its usage within 10 minutes. The hard part was done with the advent of the GUI: mapping physical input to digital movement on a 2D screen. The major change is that mouse has been replaced with your finger, but UX-wise its mostly the same. The main difficulty with the game is getting used to the controller, but even then conceptually its not that big of a leap from a mouse. Given that there is a _lot_ of room for mistakes, the fastest teaching is to just let them fuck around with it. The same as with a video game: hand them a controller and they'll figure out (most of) the rest. There's not that many things you can do with it. They'll mostly miss out on the non-essentials, as they reach a point where exploration is no longer explicitly necessary. I can't comment on the newer iphone, as I never used it, but the general rules are the same. If I can trust someone to figure out most of a game with a controller of 16 inputs, I can probably trust someone to figure out most an iphone with some 8. Maybe not your grandmother, but otherwise. In other words Once you understand the mouse, you understand everything (up to today)

Razengan 8y ago

The gestures in modern iOS really are a bizarre hodgepodge, a "mystery meat menu" if you will, and this is from someone who usually loves and defends Apple's UX decisions. on the iPad: - Notification Center: Swipe down from the center of the top edge. - Search: Swipe down anywhere on the Home Screen, away from the top edge. - Control Center: Swipe down from the top-right edge, but in that region a difference of a few pixels will either get you the Notification Center, Search, or pull out a secondary app from the side in Slide-Over Multitasking! - Multitasking: Slide-Over apps can be moved to the left side, but they cannot be swiped off the screen when they're on the left side; you have to throw them to the right side then swipe them off the right edge to dismiss them. This kind of shit is what people made (make) fun of Microsoft for. There's no way to look up the information for those controls except searching on the internet or when it [randomly] pops up in the Tips app. However, that the "file system is all sorts of weird" couldn't be further from the truth, and is only based on comparisons with document-centric systems. Everything is generally organized by apps, which can actually be more intuitive in many ways, especially to people who have no prior experience with computers, while iCloud Drive and the Files app still let you use document-centric workflows if you want to.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
As someone who has carried a modern Android phone and modern IOS for not quite a decade, I do agree that IOS has some very odd UX choices. The podcast app is like a puzzle game.

Corrado 8y ago

It might be similar to having someone from today work on an Apple Newton. Touchscreen and buttons are pretty familiar but the cursive recognition and things like the modem interface would be really weird.