5 ms·

She should be commended for her patience and willingness to help this man. Several years ago I spent about 2 hours helping an elderly woman do pretty much the

She should be commended for her patience and willingness to help this man. Several years ago I spent about 2 hours helping an elderly woman do pretty much the same thing, who did not get nearly this far and she gave up. The concept of a mouse moving the cursor on the screen was beyond her comprehension, yet otherwise she was a perfectly intelligent, well-read woman. It may have been my fault for not explaining it properly, but it is certainly true that modern interface design obviously takes for granted that we already know the basics. Who would have thought that 'help' offers none? And 'suggested sites' gives some bizarre privacy warning? I wonder, however, how Joe would have fared with an iPad? Edit: oops on the gender.

rakkhi 15y ago
I was going to say the same thing. Touch seems so much more intuative, I have the Facebook web app looking at a photo album and I absently flick and it doesn't work... Those youtube videos of a 2 year old using an iPad also..
- a3_nm 15y ago
  I have seen a 3 year-old failing to grasp how to use the arrow keys to control a character in a game, but swipe to review pictures on an iPhone spontaneously. There is one indirection less, which probably makes all the difference. (This does not mean that touch interfaces are better, though -- just that they are more intuitive.)
  - ern 15y ago
    My two year old managed to figure out the iPad, far better than I would have guessed. He can find games and load them himself, and uses the safety of the Home button to get out of confusing situations. He has also attempted to translate the interaction method to the PC, without much success (he recently pushed the round "off" button on a monitor, because it looks like the iPad home button). My grandmother also figured out the iPad's UI quickly, although she has almost zero experience using computers, and struggles to work her phone. I didn't explore how much more she could do with it though. Surprisingly though, my father in law, a doctor with some computer experience, struggled a little with his iPad, and only uses it for online banking. I think it had to do with un-learning his old habits. What I guess from this very small sample is that a touch interface is more intuitive for novices, but could be troublesome for those with some, limited computer experience. I'm sure there's tons of research being done into this stuff...hopefully it will be distilled into an accessible form soon [an updated Design of Everyday things say].
- gregpilling 15y ago
  my three year old figured out how to move around in my Nook by himself. I opened up a 'read-to-me' book and he grabbed the Nook from me and just started swiping. It was pretty neat to see how rapidly he picked up on what to do. He is now a devoted Angry Birds player on it too.
- Splines 15y ago
  Those youtube videos of a 2 year old using an iPad also.. My 2-yr old has gleefully wiped my PIN-locked iPhone several times, as it was synced to corporate Exchange (Here Daddy! sigh Thank you, dear).
tbassetto 15y ago
Her name is Jenny Boriss :)
finne 15y ago
A couple of years ago, I set my 73yr old father up with his first ever computer. It was a frustrating yet fascinating experience to see how someone who had never interacted with a computer actually did so. It certainly made me aware of usability issues that I would (as someone that sits at a computer every day) have never considered to be anything other than obvious.
robin_reala 15y ago
I gave my grandma (who’d never used a computer before) an iPad for christmas. She still doesn’t use it much (just email really) but she grasped the direct touch interaction straight away. Swipes as well were fine - there’s a direct feedback model where if you start dragging a webpage it animates during the process. Where she has difficulty is understanding what you’d use the net for (“You can get recipes on the internet?”). She needed it though - her current way of getting information is Teletext (UK-wide information system built into analogue TV broadcasts). That gives her weather, stocks+shares, TV listings and news, but is being turned off next year when they turn off analogue broadcasts to free up spectrum space. Digital terrestrial TV has the 'red button' info system but it contains dramatically less information.
- calloc 15y ago
  It is funny you mention Teletext, my grandpa uses that almost exclusively for almost everything, especially flight status when he is coming to pick someone up from the airport. It is also generally presented in a much less confusing way than any other format, and doesn't have thousands of distracting ads all over the place.
  - robin_reala 15y ago
    Better move him onto something else this year then. The last transmitter is being switched off in April 2012: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_switchover_dates_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_switchover_dates_in_the...
    - calloc 15y ago
      This is in The Netherlands, not sure if they have the same plans on switching it off.
      - robin_reala 15y ago
        Terrestial TV in the Netherlands completed the digital transition in 2006 apparently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_Netherlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_Nethe... Same article says though that 90% of the Netherlands uses cable TV and that’s mostly still analogue (guess that’s how he gets Teletext?)
mquander 15y ago
Jumping on this iPad bandwagon. My 90-year-old grandpa hasn't ever used a computer; he used an old Microsoft WebTV since about 1998 so that he could send and receive email and pictures, and the only other things he knew how to do with it were check stocks and weather. Apparently the last remaining WebTV portal server at Microsoft is getting dusty and flaking out sometimes, so we bought him an iPad (his vision is pretty good.) We preloaded it with bookmarks to local news, stocks, weather, email, a few little reference sorts of apps, and a few games (e.g. he really likes Cribbage.) At first, he was pretty skeptical, but we spent a few hours showing him all the stuff he could do with it, and he figured it out pretty easily. Now he's perfectly happy with it and likes it a lot better than his WebTV. I'm not sure if he really has a conceptual model of the Internet or anything, but he can do all the stuff he cares about easily. The most amazing thing to him is Google Maps. He could hardly believe that he could just flick around and see a picture of his house and our houses and all the houses of his friends. I'm not sure he actually bought it when I told him that they drove a car around every street and took pictures.

rakkhi 15y ago

I was going to say the same thing. Touch seems so much more intuative, I have the Facebook web app looking at a photo album and I absently flick and it doesn't work... Those youtube videos of a 2 year old using an iPad also..

a3_nm 15y ago
I have seen a 3 year-old failing to grasp how to use the arrow keys to control a character in a game, but swipe to review pictures on an iPhone spontaneously. There is one indirection less, which probably makes all the difference. (This does not mean that touch interfaces are better, though -- just that they are more intuitive.)
- ern 15y ago
  My two year old managed to figure out the iPad, far better than I would have guessed. He can find games and load them himself, and uses the safety of the Home button to get out of confusing situations. He has also attempted to translate the interaction method to the PC, without much success (he recently pushed the round "off" button on a monitor, because it looks like the iPad home button). My grandmother also figured out the iPad's UI quickly, although she has almost zero experience using computers, and struggles to work her phone. I didn't explore how much more she could do with it though. Surprisingly though, my father in law, a doctor with some computer experience, struggled a little with his iPad, and only uses it for online banking. I think it had to do with un-learning his old habits. What I guess from this very small sample is that a touch interface is more intuitive for novices, but could be troublesome for those with some, limited computer experience. I'm sure there's tons of research being done into this stuff...hopefully it will be distilled into an accessible form soon [an updated Design of Everyday things say].
gregpilling 15y ago
my three year old figured out how to move around in my Nook by himself. I opened up a 'read-to-me' book and he grabbed the Nook from me and just started swiping. It was pretty neat to see how rapidly he picked up on what to do. He is now a devoted Angry Birds player on it too.
Splines 15y ago
Those youtube videos of a 2 year old using an iPad also.. My 2-yr old has gleefully wiped my PIN-locked iPhone several times, as it was synced to corporate Exchange (Here Daddy! sigh Thank you, dear).

tbassetto 15y ago

Her name is Jenny Boriss :)

finne 15y ago

A couple of years ago, I set my 73yr old father up with his first ever computer. It was a frustrating yet fascinating experience to see how someone who had never interacted with a computer actually did so. It certainly made me aware of usability issues that I would (as someone that sits at a computer every day) have never considered to be anything other than obvious.

robin_reala 15y ago

I gave my grandma (who’d never used a computer before) an iPad for christmas. She still doesn’t use it much (just email really) but she grasped the direct touch interaction straight away. Swipes as well were fine - there’s a direct feedback model where if you start dragging a webpage it animates during the process. Where she has difficulty is understanding what you’d use the net for (“You can get recipes on the internet?”). She needed it though - her current way of getting information is Teletext (UK-wide information system built into analogue TV broadcasts). That gives her weather, stocks+shares, TV listings and news, but is being turned off next year when they turn off analogue broadcasts to free up spectrum space. Digital terrestrial TV has the 'red button' info system but it contains dramatically less information.

calloc 15y ago
It is funny you mention Teletext, my grandpa uses that almost exclusively for almost everything, especially flight status when he is coming to pick someone up from the airport. It is also generally presented in a much less confusing way than any other format, and doesn't have thousands of distracting ads all over the place.
- robin_reala 15y ago
  Better move him onto something else this year then. The last transmitter is being switched off in April 2012: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_switchover_dates_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_switchover_dates_in_the...
  - calloc 15y ago
    This is in The Netherlands, not sure if they have the same plans on switching it off.
    - robin_reala 15y ago
      Terrestial TV in the Netherlands completed the digital transition in 2006 apparently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_Netherlands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_Nethe... Same article says though that 90% of the Netherlands uses cable TV and that’s mostly still analogue (guess that’s how he gets Teletext?)

mquander 15y ago

Jumping on this iPad bandwagon. My 90-year-old grandpa hasn't ever used a computer; he used an old Microsoft WebTV since about 1998 so that he could send and receive email and pictures, and the only other things he knew how to do with it were check stocks and weather. Apparently the last remaining WebTV portal server at Microsoft is getting dusty and flaking out sometimes, so we bought him an iPad (his vision is pretty good.) We preloaded it with bookmarks to local news, stocks, weather, email, a few little reference sorts of apps, and a few games (e.g. he really likes Cribbage.) At first, he was pretty skeptical, but we spent a few hours showing him all the stuff he could do with it, and he figured it out pretty easily. Now he's perfectly happy with it and likes it a lot better than his WebTV. I'm not sure if he really has a conceptual model of the Internet or anything, but he can do all the stuff he cares about easily. The most amazing thing to him is Google Maps. He could hardly believe that he could just flick around and see a picture of his house and our houses and all the houses of his friends. I'm not sure he actually bought it when I told him that they drove a car around every street and took pictures.