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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

Try showing a senior how to use Gmail versus how to use Comcast or AOL. You'd be surprised how well the current generation of tech savvy folks are trained on Google's UI patterns... and how little sense they make for everyone else.

I've worked with a lot of seniors with home computer help, and Google software is practically a non-starter.

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I am 59. I'm not sure that qualifies as senior, probably not.

As I said in my post, I may just be unable to see it. To me, it seems pretty straight forward. I can't think of a Google product where I had a bad user experience or found the user interface to be bad.

From YouTube to G+, I've not had any complaints about UX. certainly none worse than other services. They seem much like any other modern software. I'm absolutely not a savant, I can't even use GIMP or Blender.

Maybe it's just me?

I guess "senior" may be a poor choice of words here. The users I am speaking of are not just from outside of the generation that has grown up with computers in the home, but are not of the technical crowd. Suffice to say none of the people I provide support to are the sort to browse HN!

In reading your other replies, I kind of get what you're saying. Though, I'm not sure their icons are worse than any others? Whenever I find an icon that makes no sense, I click on it and find out what it does. Well, sometimes hovering over it will work.

That might be it, actually. I first touched a computer in the early 1970s. I'm not worried about breaking things, so I'll click buttons and see what they do.

I'm not sure that Google is worse than any other offender, though. Again, it is probably subjective.

If I had one complaint, it would be that I'm partially colorblind and this makes it difficult to differentiate certain things. Google isn't the worst offender but I guess that's a complaint that I have. I'm not sure if that is UI or UX?

I do wish they had a high-contrast option. I could probably make something but I just work around it.

Either way, thanks. This has been very informative.

What in particular?

My wife is happy enough with it. Sometimes, I hear her complaining about Gmail, that she can't add attachments. But otherwise, it seems to work for her.

We're both seniors, by the way :)

The two biggest issues I come across regularly is icons people don't understand the meaning of, and the fact that the UI changes frequently. I've found a lot of the people I work with learn how to do things, and then expect them to remain that way. Moving a button over two inches or putting it in a menu will send people calling me to come back because they don't know how to do something.

I have a lot of people literally ask me to repeat a process several times so they can write each step in doing things like attaching a file or forwarding an email down on paper. So when a button gets renamed or moved or even just has an icon instead of text, it throws people.

Thanks. I'll ask her about the icons issue. But she uses an Android phone, so enigmatic icons aren't unusual for her.

She does have that habit about writing each step, though. It frustrates me when I'm showing her how to do stuff. But it's not a new thing for her.

Google seems to want to frequently re-invent common idioms willy-nilly.

They've had several iterations of email client for Android, from the AOSP client to Gmail to Inbox. I don't want a learning curve, just a mail client. (K-9 or Outlook for Android, cheers)

They've also had numerous goes at creating a sms/xmpp/talk/video app. Google Talk/Allo/Duo/Hangouts, it's all a confusing mess.

Anecdotal, but my 90 year old father uses a chromebook and gmail very successfully.

I'd go so far as to say chromebooks are ideal for seniors, because there is very little they can screw up.

> Google software is practically a non-starter

And what was chosen instead that had a significantly easier uptake for "seniors" ?

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