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I find functions in the new smart phones un-intuitive to me. Believe it or not, I used have website usability as part of my work duties, so I thought I'm somewhat tech savvy.
Makes me think of the times when we laugh at our grandparents for not knowing how the remote control works.
Am I getting there myself? I'm (only?) 50.
iPhones and Chromebooks are imo pretty darn intuitive compared to early technology.
Remote controls never were intuitive and still aren't
UOTE=rhbj03;50483050]I find functions in the new smart phones un-intuitive to me. Believe it or not, I used have website usability as part of my work duties, so I thought I'm somewhat tech savvy.
Makes me think of the times when we laugh at our grandparents for not knowing how the remote control works.
Am I getting there myself? I'm (only?) 50.[/quote]
I am not sure it is your age. I think a lot of the smart phones are made with many glitches. I have had some that will only save misspelled words and never help me with a correct spell check. That is crazy. So it may be the smart phone you are using. I don't think they are cool anymore and most thought they were intuitive the first one they had. Not so much?
Given that my 16 year old twin girls whine for days when Instagram updates?
I doubt it means you are old ... It’s one thing if something changes to correct a flaw but our everyday technology seems to change for the sake of changing.
It’s annoying because it just adds an obstacle vs removing any.
Un-intuitive or just poor design? I am amazed at the poor ergonomics and design of most devices, software and apps. Try to hand your cellphone to someone or to change hands on your own phone. There is no where to touch the phone without changing something. There is a touch screen and the edges have additional control buttons.
I am flabbergasted at the design of my most recent semi-pro DSLR camera. Canon has been making cameras for years and the new camera is full of unnecessary stuff but lacks essentials that were on my old camera. The details are too esoteric to explain here but every photographer must just shake their head in disbelief....?
A lot of it is poor design. One of my jobs was managing R&D on a new interface for a space system. Something where you really don't want operators messing up. It was a constant war with the developers who wanted to do this, and do that, and this is really cool, yet none of whom had a clue how it was really used operationally. We did a lot of human factors studies on different designs, colors, etc and discovered that most of what developers think is cool is actually unintelligible to a non developer. They literally see and experience the interface differently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by irootoo
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The first is that there is generally a point somewhere in the middle of any technology that for me, anyway, is the sweet spot. I did a lot of word processing in my career, starting with some of the earliest dedicated word processors and going through all the iterations of Word. There came a time when the new version we were presented with was just awful--it tried to think for me and anticipate what I was trying to do, like starting a numbered list just because I had used the numeral one, completing words unasked, etc. At that point, all of us who were really skilled in word processing became incredibly frustrated. It slowed us down and caused a lot of irritation. And every update after that made everything worse.....
Good lord, YES. You're typing along and all of a sudden Word decides to reformat the document because it tries to think for me. It can sometimes take hours to undo the mess it creates. Even if I think I have the switches turned off and settings fixed, something else will comes along and trigger it again. The other thing that is frustrating, particular with Microsoft, is they will use terms from a particular field but implement them in some way where what it does is not what you would expect it to do based on the name given. Microsoft Project is especially bad about this.
UOTE=rhbj03;50483050]I find functions in the new smart phones un-intuitive to me. Believe it or not, I used have website usability as part of my work duties, so I thought I'm somewhat tech savvy.
Makes me think of the times when we laugh at our grandparents for not knowing how the remote control works.
Am I getting there myself? I'm (only?) 50.
I am not sure it is your age. I think a lot of the smart phones are made with many glitches. I have had some that will only save misspelled words and never help me with a correct spell check. That is crazy. So it may be the smart phone you are using. I don't think they are cool anymore and most thought they were intuitive the first one they had. Not so much?[/quote]
Last month, we checked into a hotel and we had two remotes for the television. My wife and I spent ten minutes trying to get the darned thing. No luck so we called the front desk.
The front desk sent a young man who said it was easy ... after about five minutes, he finally got the television turned on. For some reason, instead of having cable, they had Hulu and all we heard at breakfast the next morning involved how difficult it was to use the TV.
I find functions in the new smart phones un-intuitive to me. Believe it or not, I used have website usability as part of my work duties, so I thought I'm somewhat tech savvy.
Makes me think of the times when we laugh at our grandparents for not knowing how the remote control works.
Am I getting there myself? I'm (only?) 50.
You shouldn't feel there's something lacking in you when you clash with a new device. You're bringing a lifetime of experience and education to bear on the problem, as aging people always have. And they've always been misunderstood for it.
The fact is that people our age have little patience with foolishness because we've seen it so many times before. We know how this movie ends. In every generation there are bright-eyed youngsters who are in love with the process but don't understand people at all or how their minds work. So we have to go through this again every twenty years or so.
I have done extensive usability testing for a number of companies, including eBay, PayPal and Amazon. Even the testers think they're smarter than anyone else. At one company I told the testers to put the "OK" or "Yes" or "Continue" button in the same place on each page and to make the button bigger so it was easier to mouse to. They laughed and did it their way in the final version anyway, because they can't imagine anyone other than their twentysomething selves.
There are a lot of Aspies in tech. Probably many more than most people realize -- Silicon Valley is Autism Spectrum Disorder Central Headquarters. And they are not interested in making a product easier for everyone to use.
Depends on the brand of smart phone. I find Samsung to be particularly unintuitive. Apple on the other hand I find to be very intuitive.
For me it's the opposite. Apple products, starting with the Mac in the 80's, through today, are hard to use, counter intuitive and annoying. I carry an iPhone for work, but wouldn't spend my own money on one, and love my Samsung S5 and Android. My 15 year old, however, loves his iPhone, and can do almost anything on it. Of course, I sometimes miss the DOS prompt as the main user interface...
My new Lexus came with 700 page user manual.
..And that was separate from the 250 page guide to the Navigation System.
I must admit the safety alerts are wonderful and adaptive cruise control feels like it drives itself, which I guess it is.
But recently I panicked when a yellow warning light went on while driving.
So I pulled over, scoured the Big Book, and discovered that it wanted an oil change#$%!
I'm lucky I know how to start and stop the vehicle.
My Mazda also came with a huge manual that is almost as unintuitive as the "infotainment system". I learned only the things I really need to do, but one day while nearing home after a long drive, something began beeping at me. I didn't see any warning lights in front of me so I drove home because I was in a very desolate area. Later, pouring through the manual, I figured out it was a warning that the seatbelt was not fastened on the passenger side. I had no passenger, just my purse and an audiobook and a water bottle on the seat that I always lay there. From the manual, I learned that you might as well never carry a passenger because the rules are so onerous for using that seat. So now my stuff goes on the floor and I don't get the warning beeps. Turns out that when it was beeping at me, the warning light was over toward the passenger seat where you can't easily look while driving.
Talk about user unfriendly...
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