7 ms·

I do weekly videocalls with my parents. My mother uses an android tablet. We've given up on zoom because the interface is too complicated for her. Currently usi

I do weekly videocalls with my parents. My mother uses an android tablet. We've given up on zoom because the interface is too complicated for her. Currently using google duo. Some things that stop her in her tracks: - any control that requires a touch to activate and then disappears on a timeout - like all the controls for video apps. She takes 3-4 seconds to realize something changed and then 5 more more to start orienting herself. The controls usually disappear within 5-7 seconds. - any surprising prompt from the os throws her into helplessness and panic - updates that need a restart, etc. - anything that switches the focus away from the current activity. Why would android interrupt a live call with some BS, ever, is beyond me. - communications apps show a screen with names but that's often the log of past calls or a chat. She wants to just click a name and make a call. On zoom, going to her contacts required 2 or 3 clicks which were not intuitive for her, and so she can never initiate a call. - zoom audio needed active confirmation to connect to audio. On a tablet, where no options are available but the over-wifi audio. - her having to slide a control in order to answer a call. - anything that requires a reaction within 10-15 seconds - anything that uses (even widely accepted) technical jargon. She is not deaf or disabled nor visually impaired and yet the complexity of using this device presents serious obstacles. These are just from the top of my head. She doesn't browse or use a computer and I'm happy for her. TV and newspaper are enough and I just don't feel good about having her navigate a world of malicious predatory dark patterns. This makes me realize how used I am to not trusting anything online and presuming the worst by default - in order to protect myself. I remember how about a decade ago my dad wanted me to help him with an important email. Someone had emailed him to tell him he won a lottery in Britain. It took me a lot of effort to explain to him that it is a scam, that they've emailed everyone, automatically, (to him a simple email takes half an hour so he can't imagine so much effort going into a scam) and that despite them knowing his name... they don't really know him. The asymmetrical nature of malicious activity online is so... dishartening.

userbinator 4y ago
She is not deaf or disabled nor visually impaired and yet the complexity of using this device presents serious obstacles. I'm an experienced developer in the software industry and some of the stuff you mention still catches me off-guard --- especially the whole "disappearing controls" thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293
- bentcorner 4y ago
  IMO controls that require some kind of time-related action (e.g., magically disappearing popups and buttons that hide themselves) should violate accessibility standards.
  - userbinator 4y ago
    Agreed; I think games --- especially ones where realtime reaction is required --- are the only acceptable use of such controls. Otherwise they're just a really unpleasant "race condition".
Ruq 4y ago
Many of the things you describe, describe my mother to a tee. She uses an iPad, but progressively Apple has complicated the interface to fit in more and more features, which has made it harder and harder for her to use the device simply. --- One recent example is the Notes app, which today includes folders, tags, and many other fancy features. I only discovered recently that she had still been using the app as though she did the day she started using Notes, which must've been c. iOS 6. She didn't even notice the top-left "< Folders" button. Apple's design language is "Clean" and "Modern", but often fails to convey to non-technical users that a even a button is...a button, since iOS/iPadOS use colored text with no background to convey that something is a button. --- One other example was a mistake I made while configuring a web browser for her. I absent-mindedly turned on "Hide panels automatically", and it wasn't until I figured out what my mother meant when she complained "SOMETHING POPS OUT AND THEN JUST VANISHES" of what I had done wrong.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  My pet peeves are icons. I am sick and tired of button actions being communicated with a meaningless set of pictograms I have never seen before. Give. Me. Text.
  - mxhdotlol 4y ago
    I'm with you there. Having spent so much time on the command line, it's so much more straightforward to just have a label that plainly describes what something is or does. As I understand it, imagery is (ideally supposed to be) language agnostic, like the "icons" for events at the Olympics, though it doesn't always work out as intended.
    - wolpoli 4y ago
      It's unfortunate that designers have since removed all textures/colors/depths from icons, leaving us with basic lines and shapes, and the result isn't pleasant to look at and very tough to recognize.
    - adrianmsmith 4y ago
madars 4y ago
>zoom audio needed active confirmation to connect to audio. On a tablet, where no options are available but the over-wifi audio. It is annoying they ask it every time but there is, in fact, a different option: option to call your phone (which most people have) which could have lower latency and higher reliability. I have succesfully used it in places where internet is spotty but adding an extra step to join a call is too much.
margalabargala 4y ago
If Google Duo stops working out, we've had great experience using meet.jit.si with my wife's great-aunt. She's in her mid-80s, and English is her second language. We set up a room months ago and sent her the link, and each time we talk weekly she goes to the same place, clicks the same link, and the whole thing just works for her. It was simple enough that we were able to walk through setup over the phone (we're on the West Coast, the great aunt is in Germany). No ads (just checked with an adblocker turned off), and the same link always dumps you in the same always-active room. As a bonus the whole thing is open source. No, I don't work for them or have any interest whatsoever other than being a happy user.
- Tor3 4y ago
  I also tried a setup with meet.jit.si for my parents. As you did, I set up a 'permanent' room where everyone in the extended family could connect at any time. Then I set up a Raspberry Pi connected to one HDMI port on their TV, and I used one of those Logitech cams with a built-in mic which I placed near the TV, and connected to another HDMI port on the Pi. I set up Chromium to start automatically, in kiosk mode, and to go directly to the Jitsi room. Finally I used a little relay board connected to a couple of GPIO pins on the Pi and programmed that to turn off and on the Pi. The relay board was remote controlled (infrared, worked fine). I used a small, but not too small, remote control with one single big red button. When a scheduled or agreed (maybe by a phone call) meeting was due, my father pressed the button and the TV switched to the Pi HDMI (turning on the TV if it wasn't already on), showing the Jitsi room. With maybe grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and my parents could just sit in their chairs and watch and talk via the TV. When finished my father pressed the button again, and I had programmed the Pi, as part of its shutdown sequence, to switch the TV to the other, normal HDMI port. It's possible to command the TV to switch inputs, via commands to HDMI, unfortunately it's not possible to switch to antenna input but my parents were on cable and used an HDMI port for that. So with this setup they would go from the Jitsi room to whatever they were watching before. Though the TV would be left on even if it was off before they connected - I didn't find a way to control the TV that detailed. This worked well, as far as it went, the issue I had was that it wasn't practically possible to set up a power supply for that little relay board so I used a couple of 9V batteries instead. But it turned out that the board would suck the batteries empty in no time. So, as a prototype, it worked, but I would have to make a proper power supply for that to be fully useful. After a few months my parents had to move to a care home so the project was put on a shelf.
amatecha 4y ago
Heck, I'm a lifelong-computer-obsessed software engineer in my 30's and almost all those bullet points have an adverse or frustrating effect for me as well. I am "purposely lazy" and spend as little effort as possible deciphering user interfaces. There's simply zero excuse for non-intuitive software anymore. I refuse to expend my valuable time and cognitive energy making up for the shortcomings of a software vendor, and it regularly surprises/disappoints me just how much effort people expend in that way. In my opinion, it's practically an insult to provide software or a "service" that essentially demands the person interacting with it slog through countless arcane or obtuse interfaces which could have been totally simple, concise and straightforward. There have been literal decades of prior art on subtly nudging a user through the most obvious and "least surprising" ways to complete their intended task.
KORraN 4y ago
> - zoom audio needed active confirmation to connect to audio. I don't know if it's just me, but even as an "IT person", I never understood this "connect to audio" phrase, I just learnt that it is required for calls...
- digitalengineer 4y ago
  It's there to protect users. They need to give consent to open the audio channel. As a usability / ux person, this one feature I actually like.
  - fsh 4y ago
    Protect them from what? Being able to listen to the call?
    - digitalengineer 4y ago
      To protect them from accidentally speaking their mind, mentioning things that might get them in trouble if the other side hears it. to prevent this, Zoom (and others) ask you to click to open the mic. It's a GDPR thing: The default setting in most tools is that the user has to actively switch on their camera and microphone when they begin to participate.
      - fsh 4y ago
        Auto-muting new users is not the issue (every reasonable video chat software does this). The problem is that in Zoom you have to "join audio" before hearing anything. I guess they do this since you could in principle also join the call by phone. Anyway, this behavior is extremely confusing for inexperienced users.
        leaflets2 4y ago
        > you have to "join audio" before hearing anything If it's a private meeting, you're going to listen only, but you're at a public place and didn't yet plug in your headphones?
faebi 4y ago
I could add a lot more items and annoyances on my own. That makes me wonder, why don't we have some global list of iOS, Android, Macos, Windows and Browser usability issues?
raverbashing 4y ago
That's what happens when IT companies hire people that know how to invert a binary tree but know jack crap about UI/UX and human interaction (or you know, about just what it takes to make a call) Also Zoom on PC is usable, Zoom on phones is awful
- shikoba 4y ago
  Someone failed a whiteboard interview?
- siva7 4y ago
  Those people (software engineers) aren’t making the decisions around the product in larger companies. These are done by Product Managers and UX Specialists/Designers.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    They (mostly) don't make the bigger decisions, bigger design choices, true But for minor stuff/fixes it's easy to slip something that's awkward or not very usable. Or a legacy interface is still being used (because the developer thought it out - since the company was smaller, or a specific screen was overlooked) and that's not a great interface
    - siva7 4y ago
      That may be the case in companies without proper responsibility distinction but in those with (usually the bigger ones), not even small decisions are made solely by software engineers. They are always double checked by the Product Management because any requested change has to come from the Product Management and has to be signed-off by them. In a company like Zoom everything you are seeing in the UI isn’t the result of something that slipped through solely by the engineer but was reviewed and thought out by multiple people who don’t touch the code.
      - leaflets2 4y ago
        So I can be mad at more than one person, when Google Drive's or iOS' user interface is misbehaving
js4ever 4y ago
"I am to not trusting anything online and presuming the worst by default" ... It's exactly the same IRL ...

userbinator 4y ago

She is not deaf or disabled nor visually impaired and yet the complexity of using this device presents serious obstacles. I'm an experienced developer in the software industry and some of the stuff you mention still catches me off-guard --- especially the whole "disappearing controls" thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293

bentcorner 4y ago
IMO controls that require some kind of time-related action (e.g., magically disappearing popups and buttons that hide themselves) should violate accessibility standards.
- userbinator 4y ago
  Agreed; I think games --- especially ones where realtime reaction is required --- are the only acceptable use of such controls. Otherwise they're just a really unpleasant "race condition".

Ruq 4y ago

Many of the things you describe, describe my mother to a tee. She uses an iPad, but progressively Apple has complicated the interface to fit in more and more features, which has made it harder and harder for her to use the device simply. --- One recent example is the Notes app, which today includes folders, tags, and many other fancy features. I only discovered recently that she had still been using the app as though she did the day she started using Notes, which must've been c. iOS 6. She didn't even notice the top-left "< Folders" button. Apple's design language is "Clean" and "Modern", but often fails to convey to non-technical users that a even a button is...a button, since iOS/iPadOS use colored text with no background to convey that something is a button. --- One other example was a mistake I made while configuring a web browser for her. I absent-mindedly turned on "Hide panels automatically", and it wasn't until I figured out what my mother meant when she complained "SOMETHING POPS OUT AND THEN JUST VANISHES" of what I had done wrong.

kmeisthax 4y ago
My pet peeves are icons. I am sick and tired of button actions being communicated with a meaningless set of pictograms I have never seen before. Give. Me. Text.
- mxhdotlol 4y ago
  I'm with you there. Having spent so much time on the command line, it's so much more straightforward to just have a label that plainly describes what something is or does. As I understand it, imagery is (ideally supposed to be) language agnostic, like the "icons" for events at the Olympics, though it doesn't always work out as intended.
  - wolpoli 4y ago
    It's unfortunate that designers have since removed all textures/colors/depths from icons, leaving us with basic lines and shapes, and the result isn't pleasant to look at and very tough to recognize.
  - adrianmsmith 4y ago

madars 4y ago

>zoom audio needed active confirmation to connect to audio. On a tablet, where no options are available but the over-wifi audio. It is annoying they ask it every time but there is, in fact, a different option: option to call your phone (which most people have) which could have lower latency and higher reliability. I have succesfully used it in places where internet is spotty but adding an extra step to join a call is too much.

margalabargala 4y ago

If Google Duo stops working out, we've had great experience using meet.jit.si with my wife's great-aunt. She's in her mid-80s, and English is her second language. We set up a room months ago and sent her the link, and each time we talk weekly she goes to the same place, clicks the same link, and the whole thing just works for her. It was simple enough that we were able to walk through setup over the phone (we're on the West Coast, the great aunt is in Germany). No ads (just checked with an adblocker turned off), and the same link always dumps you in the same always-active room. As a bonus the whole thing is open source. No, I don't work for them or have any interest whatsoever other than being a happy user.

Tor3 4y ago
I also tried a setup with meet.jit.si for my parents. As you did, I set up a 'permanent' room where everyone in the extended family could connect at any time. Then I set up a Raspberry Pi connected to one HDMI port on their TV, and I used one of those Logitech cams with a built-in mic which I placed near the TV, and connected to another HDMI port on the Pi. I set up Chromium to start automatically, in kiosk mode, and to go directly to the Jitsi room. Finally I used a little relay board connected to a couple of GPIO pins on the Pi and programmed that to turn off and on the Pi. The relay board was remote controlled (infrared, worked fine). I used a small, but not too small, remote control with one single big red button. When a scheduled or agreed (maybe by a phone call) meeting was due, my father pressed the button and the TV switched to the Pi HDMI (turning on the TV if it wasn't already on), showing the Jitsi room. With maybe grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and my parents could just sit in their chairs and watch and talk via the TV. When finished my father pressed the button again, and I had programmed the Pi, as part of its shutdown sequence, to switch the TV to the other, normal HDMI port. It's possible to command the TV to switch inputs, via commands to HDMI, unfortunately it's not possible to switch to antenna input but my parents were on cable and used an HDMI port for that. So with this setup they would go from the Jitsi room to whatever they were watching before. Though the TV would be left on even if it was off before they connected - I didn't find a way to control the TV that detailed. This worked well, as far as it went, the issue I had was that it wasn't practically possible to set up a power supply for that little relay board so I used a couple of 9V batteries instead. But it turned out that the board would suck the batteries empty in no time. So, as a prototype, it worked, but I would have to make a proper power supply for that to be fully useful. After a few months my parents had to move to a care home so the project was put on a shelf.

amatecha 4y ago

Heck, I'm a lifelong-computer-obsessed software engineer in my 30's and almost all those bullet points have an adverse or frustrating effect for me as well. I am "purposely lazy" and spend as little effort as possible deciphering user interfaces. There's simply zero excuse for non-intuitive software anymore. I refuse to expend my valuable time and cognitive energy making up for the shortcomings of a software vendor, and it regularly surprises/disappoints me just how much effort people expend in that way. In my opinion, it's practically an insult to provide software or a "service" that essentially demands the person interacting with it slog through countless arcane or obtuse interfaces which could have been totally simple, concise and straightforward. There have been literal decades of prior art on subtly nudging a user through the most obvious and "least surprising" ways to complete their intended task.

KORraN 4y ago

> - zoom audio needed active confirmation to connect to audio. I don't know if it's just me, but even as an "IT person", I never understood this "connect to audio" phrase, I just learnt that it is required for calls...

digitalengineer 4y ago
It's there to protect users. They need to give consent to open the audio channel. As a usability / ux person, this one feature I actually like.
- fsh 4y ago
  Protect them from what? Being able to listen to the call?
  - digitalengineer 4y ago
    To protect them from accidentally speaking their mind, mentioning things that might get them in trouble if the other side hears it. to prevent this, Zoom (and others) ask you to click to open the mic. It's a GDPR thing: The default setting in most tools is that the user has to actively switch on their camera and microphone when they begin to participate.
    - fsh 4y ago
      Auto-muting new users is not the issue (every reasonable video chat software does this). The problem is that in Zoom you have to "join audio" before hearing anything. I guess they do this since you could in principle also join the call by phone. Anyway, this behavior is extremely confusing for inexperienced users.
      - leaflets2 4y ago
        > you have to "join audio" before hearing anything If it's a private meeting, you're going to listen only, but you're at a public place and didn't yet plug in your headphones?

faebi 4y ago

I could add a lot more items and annoyances on my own. That makes me wonder, why don't we have some global list of iOS, Android, Macos, Windows and Browser usability issues?

raverbashing 4y ago

That's what happens when IT companies hire people that know how to invert a binary tree but know jack crap about UI/UX and human interaction (or you know, about just what it takes to make a call) Also Zoom on PC is usable, Zoom on phones is awful

shikoba 4y ago
Someone failed a whiteboard interview?
siva7 4y ago
Those people (software engineers) aren’t making the decisions around the product in larger companies. These are done by Product Managers and UX Specialists/Designers.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  They (mostly) don't make the bigger decisions, bigger design choices, true But for minor stuff/fixes it's easy to slip something that's awkward or not very usable. Or a legacy interface is still being used (because the developer thought it out - since the company was smaller, or a specific screen was overlooked) and that's not a great interface
  - siva7 4y ago
    That may be the case in companies without proper responsibility distinction but in those with (usually the bigger ones), not even small decisions are made solely by software engineers. They are always double checked by the Product Management because any requested change has to come from the Product Management and has to be signed-off by them. In a company like Zoom everything you are seeing in the UI isn’t the result of something that slipped through solely by the engineer but was reviewed and thought out by multiple people who don’t touch the code.
    - leaflets2 4y ago
      So I can be mad at more than one person, when Google Drive's or iOS' user interface is misbehaving

js4ever 4y ago

"I am to not trusting anything online and presuming the worst by default" ... It's exactly the same IRL ...