I did notice Instagram apparently is a bit flawed. I’ve been a programmer for 35 years. It’s my job to make interfaces easy and intuitive. I take pride in coding applications that are almost idiot proof.
I don’t use Instagram. But I would expect the print button to print the Photo and not the other useless crap on the screen.
Obviously it’s not intuitive on Instagram. I’m sure I could quickly figure out how to only print the photo. I certainly wouldn’t frame a photo like the befuddled people in that article.
But it should be easy & intuitive, even to a 75 year old user. That’s the expectation of any well written App.
I don’t see any comments at the end of that article?
Most of the errors are funny and easily corrected with a little instruction.
I get calls from my mom almost every week asking for help.
I messed up yesterday and emailed her a photo from my phone. I assumed her PC’s email would resize it for the screen.
She called saying the photo was messed up. I signed into her email and it was HUGE. She was only seeing a small blown up area of the photo. That was my goof. I had to resize the photo and email it to her again.
I’m puzzled why the email attachment didn’t get resized in the browser. But, it definitely didn’t. I’ll have to remember to resize any photos I take with my phone.
I saw a blip about a tablet as a cutting board back when the first ones came out. Staged photo me thinks. Couple of the pix aren’t even cringe worthy. So g’ma sends a letter by text. Big deal. Another sends pix. Big deal. Also shows Android users must be smarter as all were attributed to I-world users.
BTW On a frequent basis, I don’t use 50% of the buttons on my satellite remote and 75% on my TV remote. Back when all TVs had remotes and I still had grandparents, I looked long and hard for a very simple remote when I bought them a new TV. Harder to find than I thought. Now it is worse.
Yeah, we older folks are a laff riot. I actually don’t have many problems unless the issue is something that needs an IT type to assist with. I’ve asked my share of questions on this board. But at age 70, I’ve been able to teach myself how to navigate around Apple’s sometimes less-than-intuitive iOS, to use an iPad and other devices, etc. I don’t have a smart phone, not because I don’t understand it, but because I have little need for it. The cost-to-benefit ratio is just not there.
I once had a friend who tried to email her entire multi-gigabyte photo library with Gmail.
Which is pretty stupid.
But, not as stupid as Gmail, which actually tried to send it, without doing a sanity check and failing first.
The truth is that there is a lot of bad design out there in gadget land. Many devices are not designed to work easily with other stuff and the actions the user has to perform to various boxes to make them work together is confusing and complicated.
If anyone has been down the route of trying to make everything work with one remote control, they will know it is a frustrating exercise and it is only going to get worse as home automation gets going. There is a multiplicity of imature interface standards, conflicting protocols and buggy software. They cram in too many things and neglect to make the most common features easy to find and use.
Its not the older folk that are the problem. It should not require the dexterity, curiosity and ingenuity of a geeky teenager to get this stuff working. I can only see this getting worse as our homes get more an more ‘smart’ devices. Their smartness only seems to extend to the latest products sold by the same company.
New devices should be field tested by retired folk for ease of use. Why cram so many buttons with small writing onto a remote control? Why don’t they make phones with better volume control? As you grow older, you notice these things and they test your patience. This isn’t rocket science. Focus groups are not a new invention.
[QUOTE=filmstar-en;20691966New devices should be field tested by retired folk for ease of use. Why cram so many buttons with small writing onto a remote control? Why don’t they make phones with better volume control? As you grow older, you notice these things and they test your patience. This isn’t rocket science. Focus groups are not a new invention.[/QUOTE]
I spend time in the HR world, and the big subject is “What to do about Millennials?”. In my uncharitable reading, the answer is that we (meaning everyone who came before) must adjust to them. So why would we expect them to produce products that work for older folks? That would be against their core nature.
The article mentioned the older person who was using the mouse upside-down. But they didn’t hear my ex-boss complaining to the help desk, that the “foot pedal” was acting screwy. And he wasn’t even old.
I had to resize the photo and email it to her again.