@adamgreenfield thank you for these posts. Our technology is user hostile to the most able of us, to those with less capacity it is downright harmful.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn I feel the same rage. My rage is additionally fueled by the fact that I know that these things can be designed better if only somebody cared and thought for a moment.

And then I think of all the layers that this must have gone through. Somebody designed it. There were likely meetings about it, people discussed it, somebody coded it, somebody tested it, somebody accepted it, and then it got released. Didn't anybody notice these obvious problems anywhere along the way?

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn I have provided volunteer tech support for elderly Apple product owners for years. Number 1 problem is how to hold the phone without accidentally triggering a touch event at the screen edges. Number 2 is “what’s do you mean ‘my Apple Account password?’”

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn I've seen several elderly people use a notepad with their own written step-by-step instructions on how to perform basic tasks on a computer, like sending an email. In all cases they did it through the web UI of whichever email provider they use.

Now imagine these people's horror when that provider redesigns their already perfectly fine UI in order to keep their full-time designers and developers occupied.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn "here's a dozen essential functions but they're only available in a swipe gesture you will have to try to rote memorise, because if you don't you might accidentally trigger it, change a setting to break some aspect of your device, and then have no idea how to fix it, but always know it was "your" fault".

The fundamental rot at the core of UI and UX is a phenomenon of the application of a broader cultural-political programme of anti-structure, and anti-hierarchy.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn Yes. I set up a custom focus on my mum's iPhone. I'm supposed to be the techy one in my family and even I struggled with it.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn At least on Android you can replace the stock UI with any number of third party alternatives aimed at simplifying phone UIs for the elderly or other people with difficulties dealing with screens. They just want to use it as a phone? There are UIs that give them an icon for their address book, and a big button to make calls.

Can't do that on iPhones!

@adamgreenfield Way back when I taught adult education classes, every cohort would have someone who wanted to know why their grandkids were so good with their computers. And I explained, patiently, that they didn't have any skill, just no sense of consequences for getting something wrong, so they try things to see what works.

It's been twenty years, and the difference (as you point out) is that companies have decided that every one-pixel mis-click or typo should result in catastrophe.

@adamgreenfield I sent your post to my mom and she says, thank you.
@jessamyn @JeniParsons

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn Finally had to resort to using Assistive Access on my elderly parent's phone recently because of cognitive decline. While it makes things much simpler for them to use and understand, it's horrifically buggy.

I can understand why Voiceover users get so angry about it now. On paper a good idea, and one that's vital for them, but the sheer sloppiness and disregard for the quality of the implementation... Well.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn Just about every app dev team I’ve been involved with the front-end devs sported their flagship maxxed out iDevices, and when I bought a bunch of cheap BRICS-market ’droids for them to test with… LOL the amount of bickering… Emotional intelligence is a rare trait indeed.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn #evilGoogle does evil on #evilAndroid on purpose. Under that mess of settings they hide all offensive against users.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn

And there is no excuse for it. There's nearly 50 years of accumulated UI design and research to draw from. Plenty of workflows to deploy to bring users, including those with special requirements, into your design process. BUT the big companies and I will single out MS and Google, have paid lip service to all this knowledge, thinking they know better, They don't. They are serial offenders against UI design.

@adamgreenfield @jessamyn Even before one of my parents got a dementia diagnosis they struggled with Skype on their Windows PC.

They would try to quit the program from the systray icon. One of the three menu options was "Sign out". Which they would often hit.

Murphy's Law was at work and once signed out their copy of Skype would forget both username and password.

Catch 22: my parent could not start a Skype chat with screen sharing with me so I could talk them through fixing the problem.