How Today's Tech Alienates the Elderly 453
Barence writes "A UK academic has blamed unnecessarily complicated user interfaces for putting older people off today's technology. Mike Bradley, senior lecturer in product design and engineering at Middlesex University, claims efforts to be more inclusive are being undermined by software and hardware design that is exclusively targeted at younger users. He cites the example of the seemingly simple iPhone alarm clock. 'They're faced with a screen with a clock face and a plus sign icon, and they couldn't understand that you were "adding an alarm," so they didn't click the plus sign to get through to that menu. Pressing the clock image takes you through to choices about how the clock is displayed, and it's not easy to get back again.'"
Re:Unnecessarily complex? (Score:4, Funny)
Frankly, I think the problems with UIs are unsolvable. There is a point of diminishing returns, and after a while the returns become negative. And whoever is left out after that is a hopeless case.
This is how it actually works in practice [youtube.com] (it's supposed to be satire, but, damn, it's way to accurate)