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I get that, but I do think that saying that text size is an advanced feature is just not true. Loads and loads of people are older than 40. Loads of people jus

by rtpg 8y ago

I get that, but I do think that saying that text size is an advanced feature is just not true. Loads and loads of people are older than 40. Loads of people just have weaker eyesight. Apple has really good accessibility tools, and it would make a _lot_ of sense for there to be a dedicated part of the onboarding for accessibility.

bonestamp2 8y ago
Text size is part of the onboarding now.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Yep, that's how Android does it too. Text size is a very important option for older folks, and having people pick it during the initial setup alongside other accessibility options, helps a lot.
  - robterrell 8y ago
    I just set up a pixel 3 and it didn't ask anything about text size? Onboarding was like 3 steps, including "plug in your old phone".
    - yoz-y 8y ago
      Onboard if tends to be quite different if you already had a device though. With an iPhone you can just put it close to your old one and it will suck in everything. But if you set it up anew it will ask questions about privacy setup, text size and so on.
- cududa 8y ago
  It has been since the 6/ 2015
- fit2rule 8y ago
  If its important enough to put in on boarding, its important to have it handily available through easy to access means during regular use.
  - aidos 8y ago
    Why? The initial setup is for the things you set once and never need to change. I tell my phone I want it in English during on boarding - and then I never need that setting again.
    - fit2rule 8y ago
      Eyesight changes over time. People learn new languages, and want to switch. Making these decisions for the user and then forcing them forever is decidedly un-user-friendly.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        Or, you know, the person can search for 1-2 minutes how to change the font, when they need to, if and when their "eyesight changes" enough during their years of using iPhones to warranty it. Better than cramming every such feature as a first priority, and making a UI that's confusing for everyday use.
        fit2rule 8y ago
        You didn't read the article? Even though its buried there, in the system prefs, people who need to change such settings still cannot find them. That's the point: the UI is already confusing for everyday use, and we honestly expect better of Apple.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >You didn't read the article? Even though its buried there, in the system prefs, people who need to change such settings still cannot find them. They can always look them up (online), set them, and forget them. Better than having all such settings front and center over more commonly used settings.
- jtokoph 8y ago
  I bet the end users are not setting up the phones themselves and the younger people doing the setup skip all of the prompts except WiFi.
  - simonh 8y ago
    Not if you do it in an Apple Store, at least in my experience.
    - stuaxo 8y ago
      I'm guessing most people get their phones from their phone provider or online. And of course there are still countries where there is no Apple store, but you see quite a few iPhones.
    - Sharlin 8y ago
      Only a small fraction of iPhone users have ever been to an Apple Store, never mind bought their phone from one.
    - LyndsySimon 8y ago
      Siri says that the nearest Apple Store to me is 265 miles (a 4h 38m drive) from me. It seems a bit of a stretch to ask everyone around me to drive go there every time they get a new phone.
      - georgespencer 8y ago
        > everyone around me [...] every time they get a new phone Reality: people who feel that they need help, and for most features it's a one-time trip with settings passed from phone to phone as you upgrade.
  - dspillett 8y ago
    That isn't Apple's fault though. As much as I'm not a fan of their products, there is very little you can do to help users when they (by proxy in this case) ignore or avoid your attempts to help them. Making the option easier to find after on-boarding might help, but for the users you describe it would need to be very easy to access and you will fill any list of quick-access options very quickly if you include things they may only want to use one or twice in the life of the phone rendering the "quick access" a big scary list that is neither quick nor easy. Even if you do find a good place for the option: will that class of user even know to look for it never mind find it? They'd just ask the person who on-boarded them instead so the technical level of the target audience has changed back to someone who at least knows how to Google for where to find a more buried option.
- cmurphycode 8y ago
  I suppose a nice compromise here would be to make an intelligent decision whether to bring up a prompt asking if you want to change the font size. For instance, if the FaceID detects that your face is farther or closer from the screen than normal, or that you're squinting.
  - dublin 8y ago
    Maybe, but I can say without reservation that the times I find my personal technologies the most frustrating are when they're "trying to help me". 99% of the time, this is the WRONG thing to do - for instance if my phone "helpfully" resizes my text, then there's a very good chance that I can no longer see everything I was trying to see on the tiny screen in the first place, as it will have reflowed off-screen! FAIL! It MAY be OK to ASK if I want help, but just jumping in and doing something is most likely to result in, "Shut up and do what I tell you!" (in the words of Beka Valentine...)
coldtea 8y ago
>Loads and loads of people are older than 40. Loads of people just have weaker eyesight. Even so, all of those people have to change their text size just once or twice. They can look it up when they need to. It's not like it's a feature they need to use everyday.
- toxik 8y ago
  My mom asked me if I can make the text bigger. Or I told her, I forget. How is this so upsetting? I also had to set up almost all her devices, and she’s not technically illiterate at all. She just doesn’t have the time or energy to learn every minute detail like I do.
- dotancohen 8y ago
  > Even so, all of those people have to change > their text size just once or twice. Actually, I prefer a larger text size in the evening / night and a smaller text size during daylight hours. So I'm changing text size once or twice per day.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  The point was not accessibility in day-to-day use. The point was discoverability of the feature in the first place! You cannot look up how to change text size if you haven't even realized that the possibility exists.
- naravara 8y ago
  Simple commands like this can also just be invoked with Siri. So difficulty with navigability to find the option is becoming less and less of a problem. The main challenge there is just reminding people that the option exists so that they will know to ask. That and normalizing the idea of navigating interface elements by voice or querying the search bar rather than by physically scrolling around.
Paraesthetic 8y ago
not really 'good' tools, but they have tools for that that they should put forward
wool_gather 8y ago
Text sizing is addable to the control center, as are other accessibility shortcuts. That's about as fast access as I think it's possible to get. Worth noting that there's a fair number of apps historically that don't really support text sizing. Until iOS 11, if you were using a non-system font, you had to do the resizing manually. They made it much, much easier to buy in to Dynamic Type in iOS 11, so hopefully this will get better over the next year or two.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  > Text sizing is addable to the control center, as are other accessibility shortcuts. I don't think that was the point. The point was that people don't even know it's possible to change text size, never mind about other accessibility features, because they're not easily discoverable. Besides, the people who don't know about text sizing don't know about control center customizability either...
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    True, you do still have to find it once.
marmshallow 8y ago
Our of curiosity, how is the accessibility of Hacker News? I don’t know much about how to verify that. And I imagine threaded comment pages would be especially difficult to interpret non-visually
atomical 8y ago
Couldn't optimal text size be determined by the camera (squinting) and machine learning?

by rtpg 8y ago

bonestamp2 8y ago

Text size is part of the onboarding now.

ehsankia 8y ago
Yep, that's how Android does it too. Text size is a very important option for older folks, and having people pick it during the initial setup alongside other accessibility options, helps a lot.
- robterrell 8y ago
  I just set up a pixel 3 and it didn't ask anything about text size? Onboarding was like 3 steps, including "plug in your old phone".
  - yoz-y 8y ago
    Onboard if tends to be quite different if you already had a device though. With an iPhone you can just put it close to your old one and it will suck in everything. But if you set it up anew it will ask questions about privacy setup, text size and so on.
cududa 8y ago
It has been since the 6/ 2015
fit2rule 8y ago
If its important enough to put in on boarding, its important to have it handily available through easy to access means during regular use.
- aidos 8y ago
  Why? The initial setup is for the things you set once and never need to change. I tell my phone I want it in English during on boarding - and then I never need that setting again.
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    Eyesight changes over time. People learn new languages, and want to switch. Making these decisions for the user and then forcing them forever is decidedly un-user-friendly.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Or, you know, the person can search for 1-2 minutes how to change the font, when they need to, if and when their "eyesight changes" enough during their years of using iPhones to warranty it. Better than cramming every such feature as a first priority, and making a UI that's confusing for everyday use.
      - fit2rule 8y ago
        You didn't read the article? Even though its buried there, in the system prefs, people who need to change such settings still cannot find them. That's the point: the UI is already confusing for everyday use, and we honestly expect better of Apple.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >You didn't read the article? Even though its buried there, in the system prefs, people who need to change such settings still cannot find them. They can always look them up (online), set them, and forget them. Better than having all such settings front and center over more commonly used settings.
jtokoph 8y ago
I bet the end users are not setting up the phones themselves and the younger people doing the setup skip all of the prompts except WiFi.
- simonh 8y ago
  Not if you do it in an Apple Store, at least in my experience.
  - stuaxo 8y ago
    I'm guessing most people get their phones from their phone provider or online. And of course there are still countries where there is no Apple store, but you see quite a few iPhones.
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    Only a small fraction of iPhone users have ever been to an Apple Store, never mind bought their phone from one.
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    Siri says that the nearest Apple Store to me is 265 miles (a 4h 38m drive) from me. It seems a bit of a stretch to ask everyone around me to drive go there every time they get a new phone.
    - georgespencer 8y ago
      > everyone around me [...] every time they get a new phone Reality: people who feel that they need help, and for most features it's a one-time trip with settings passed from phone to phone as you upgrade.
- dspillett 8y ago
  That isn't Apple's fault though. As much as I'm not a fan of their products, there is very little you can do to help users when they (by proxy in this case) ignore or avoid your attempts to help them. Making the option easier to find after on-boarding might help, but for the users you describe it would need to be very easy to access and you will fill any list of quick-access options very quickly if you include things they may only want to use one or twice in the life of the phone rendering the "quick access" a big scary list that is neither quick nor easy. Even if you do find a good place for the option: will that class of user even know to look for it never mind find it? They'd just ask the person who on-boarded them instead so the technical level of the target audience has changed back to someone who at least knows how to Google for where to find a more buried option.
cmurphycode 8y ago
I suppose a nice compromise here would be to make an intelligent decision whether to bring up a prompt asking if you want to change the font size. For instance, if the FaceID detects that your face is farther or closer from the screen than normal, or that you're squinting.
- dublin 8y ago
  Maybe, but I can say without reservation that the times I find my personal technologies the most frustrating are when they're "trying to help me". 99% of the time, this is the WRONG thing to do - for instance if my phone "helpfully" resizes my text, then there's a very good chance that I can no longer see everything I was trying to see on the tiny screen in the first place, as it will have reflowed off-screen! FAIL! It MAY be OK to ASK if I want help, but just jumping in and doing something is most likely to result in, "Shut up and do what I tell you!" (in the words of Beka Valentine...)

coldtea 8y ago

>Loads and loads of people are older than 40. Loads of people just have weaker eyesight. Even so, all of those people have to change their text size just once or twice. They can look it up when they need to. It's not like it's a feature they need to use everyday.

toxik 8y ago
My mom asked me if I can make the text bigger. Or I told her, I forget. How is this so upsetting? I also had to set up almost all her devices, and she’s not technically illiterate at all. She just doesn’t have the time or energy to learn every minute detail like I do.
dotancohen 8y ago
> Even so, all of those people have to change > their text size just once or twice. Actually, I prefer a larger text size in the evening / night and a smaller text size during daylight hours. So I'm changing text size once or twice per day.
Sharlin 8y ago
The point was not accessibility in day-to-day use. The point was discoverability of the feature in the first place! You cannot look up how to change text size if you haven't even realized that the possibility exists.
naravara 8y ago
Simple commands like this can also just be invoked with Siri. So difficulty with navigability to find the option is becoming less and less of a problem. The main challenge there is just reminding people that the option exists so that they will know to ask. That and normalizing the idea of navigating interface elements by voice or querying the search bar rather than by physically scrolling around.

Paraesthetic 8y ago

not really 'good' tools, but they have tools for that that they should put forward

wool_gather 8y ago

Text sizing is addable to the control center, as are other accessibility shortcuts. That's about as fast access as I think it's possible to get. Worth noting that there's a fair number of apps historically that don't really support text sizing. Until iOS 11, if you were using a non-system font, you had to do the resizing manually. They made it much, much easier to buy in to Dynamic Type in iOS 11, so hopefully this will get better over the next year or two.

Sharlin 8y ago
> Text sizing is addable to the control center, as are other accessibility shortcuts. I don't think that was the point. The point was that people don't even know it's possible to change text size, never mind about other accessibility features, because they're not easily discoverable. Besides, the people who don't know about text sizing don't know about control center customizability either...
- wool_gather 8y ago
  True, you do still have to find it once.

marmshallow 8y ago

Our of curiosity, how is the accessibility of Hacker News? I don’t know much about how to verify that. And I imagine threaded comment pages would be especially difficult to interpret non-visually

atomical 8y ago

Couldn't optimal text size be determined by the camera (squinting) and machine learning?