> And this is why software sucks. We should focus on educating users, not stooping to their level
Some users just don't want to learn. It's the reason why I always get a phone call when [Thing I've tried to sit down and teach to grandma] needs to be done.
You're on to something when talking about consistency and following design language. Building a good UI takes skill and thought into making the design intuitive enough that if it comes to it, anyone can figure it out.
I think you can have a UI that is both usable for both sides of the bell curve, it just takes skill and testing.
100% agree. It took my grandma about two weeks with a tablet to figure out by herself how to look up oil prices in the web browser. It was the first device she ever used that was more powerful than an old Nokia mobile phone and her first contact with the internet. We never taught her what a web browser was or how to use it.
Meanwhile my mother used a laptop and smartphone for years with everything that goes with it, and uses these devices mainly to complain about how they don't do exactly what she wants. It just has to work the first try or the computer is broken, there's no inbetween for her.
I was also wondering that! I’m imagining my own grandmother: “No, I said 3,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate, dammit! Make it happen or it’ll be your ass! slams down rotary phone”
Some users also really want to learn, but can't, for some reason. My grandmother used a computer for years, I spent countless hours explaining it to her, but she never managed to be confident enough to break out of very detailed "scripts" (to open a document, read/write an email, etc) and try and discover things by herself. Perhaps this is an age thing; at some point, some people can't integrate a new paradigm?
Some users just don't want to learn. It's the reason why I always get a phone call when [Thing I've tried to sit down and teach to grandma] needs to be done.
You're on to something when talking about consistency and following design language. Building a good UI takes skill and thought into making the design intuitive enough that if it comes to it, anyone can figure it out.
I think you can have a UI that is both usable for both sides of the bell curve, it just takes skill and testing.