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Some people are bound to struggle with any form of technology, no interface can ever accommodate all levels of expectation and comprehension. One size will neve

Some people are bound to struggle with any form of technology, no interface can ever accommodate all levels of expectation and comprehension. One size will never fit all, it's just not a reasonable expectation. If that is your standard for 'easy' then yeah, iPhones are hard to use. Within the spectrum of all personal computing, ever, I think today's mobile devices are some of the easiest to use. Blinker yourself from the realm the devices occupy and set idealistic goals and maybe you can say 'iPhones are hard to use', but you are likely being purposefully obtuse, dishonest, or willfully naive.

closetohome 8y ago
"Easier to use than anything before" and "hard to use" are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
kettlecorn 8y ago
After reading your response a few times I think this might come down to whether you jump to using the word "hard" relatively or absolutely. You seem to describe something as "hard" or "easy" relative to other things. If your job is lifting rocks and all of them are really heavy, but one weighs slightly less, you might describe the less heavy one as "easy" to lift. Someone else might describe them all as "hard" to lift. A lot of people in the tech industry, yourself included, seem to be in the first mindset. That mindset can be dangerous as it invites complacency. This language matters a lot, because who wants to improve something that's already "easy"? Refusing to call something "hard" because it doesn't apply to what you view as the average or ideal user is picking a small semantic point in a way that avoids improvement. Perhaps this is not you, but I've seen many people use language like yours("idealistic", "naive", "one size will never fit all") to dismiss turning a critical eye towards tech design. The argument seems to be that modern design is actually really good and that efforts to improve it are just a futile quest fueled by people who are unnecessarily critical. Maybe that argument is right, but I don't think so. Whenever I get a chance to peek outside my bubble in the tech world and I talk with a less tech savvy user it becomes clear their relationship with technology is basically adversarial. The iPhone can be "great", "easy", "hard", and "terrible" all at the same time. Refusing to accept calling it "hard" and describing someone who would do so as "obtuse, dishonest, or willfully naive" is a constrained and inaccurate mindset.

closetohome 8y ago

"Easier to use than anything before" and "hard to use" are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

kettlecorn 8y ago

After reading your response a few times I think this might come down to whether you jump to using the word "hard" relatively or absolutely. You seem to describe something as "hard" or "easy" relative to other things. If your job is lifting rocks and all of them are really heavy, but one weighs slightly less, you might describe the less heavy one as "easy" to lift. Someone else might describe them all as "hard" to lift. A lot of people in the tech industry, yourself included, seem to be in the first mindset. That mindset can be dangerous as it invites complacency. This language matters a lot, because who wants to improve something that's already "easy"? Refusing to call something "hard" because it doesn't apply to what you view as the average or ideal user is picking a small semantic point in a way that avoids improvement. Perhaps this is not you, but I've seen many people use language like yours("idealistic", "naive", "one size will never fit all") to dismiss turning a critical eye towards tech design. The argument seems to be that modern design is actually really good and that efforts to improve it are just a futile quest fueled by people who are unnecessarily critical. Maybe that argument is right, but I don't think so. Whenever I get a chance to peek outside my bubble in the tech world and I talk with a less tech savvy user it becomes clear their relationship with technology is basically adversarial. The iPhone can be "great", "easy", "hard", and "terrible" all at the same time. Refusing to accept calling it "hard" and describing someone who would do so as "obtuse, dishonest, or willfully naive" is a constrained and inaccurate mindset.