UI and elderly users

Posted Jul 26, 2024 11:28 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: UI and elderly users by Wol
Parent article: Lessons from the death and rebirth of Thunderbird

That's strange, because official Google help mentions said layers button, shows the picture of that layers button and on my phone it looks exactly like on that page, just an inch or so below your account picture.

UI and elderly users

Posted Jul 26, 2024 12:32 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (5 responses)

And we're talking past each other again...

Thanks khim, found the layers icon. But that tells me how to display traffic on the map.

What I used to be able to do, and now cannot, is (a) display the map, and (b) KEEP IT DISPLAYED.

When I start Maps, it displays the map with loads of crud. Way back when, when I selected driving mode, the map went full screen and disabled the screen saver, just like when you're navigating. Now, I can't get the map full screen, and the phone goes to sleep after a minute or so.

So basically I want it to behave just like I'm navigating somewhere, but I'm not navigating, just driving. A lot of the time (a) I know the route well so I don't want the satnav "knowing better", I just want to know what the traffic is like on my chosen route. And (b) when there IS a problem, I can't trust the satnav anyway. Last time that happened it tried to divert an entire two-lane motorway down a single-track country lane !!!

Cheers,
Wol

UI and elderly users

Posted Jul 26, 2024 12:56 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

> And we're talking past each other again...

Maybe.

> I just want to know what the traffic is like on my chosen route

That's service, not a software. And you either pay for service or you are the product to be sold to advertisers.

> Way back when, when I selected driving mode, the map went full screen and disabled the screen saver, just like when you're navigating.

You should still be able to do that if you'll find old phone and old version of Google Maps somewhere.

Google maps is sort of exception from the rule that you need latest client to access it.

Not because they want to support old clients, but because they have to: there are some people who actually pay for that service, even if indirectly, via car-makers — these are actual users, they are not a product to be sold to advertisers and thus these people can enjoy stability. You could piggy-back on that.

But yes, it's very much an exception, not rule. Most of the time service providers don't even give an option to keep service access interface stable, not even for $$.

UI and elderly users

Posted Aug 3, 2024 6:33 UTC (Sat) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link] (1 responses)

Personally, if I click twice (not necessarily quickly) on the button that centers the position, it zooms, goes from top view to perspective and stays centered and oriented on me. The search bar and band at the bottom keep polluting the screen but are relatively small.

I also have an app called caffeine installed which provides a button in the shortcuts at the top (where you can activate wifi, torch, ...) to prevent the screen from turning off for a given amount of time (I set 1h by default but this can be tuned).

It could be better, but it kind of works.

You can thank telemetry for the disappearance of features. Nobody [1] uses it? Remove the feature[2]

[1] for Google "Nobody" means less than a billion users

[2] in some cases, this is very similar reasoning to not building cycle lanes because there are no bikes on the road. Or not building a bridge over a river because nobody crosses swimming. The feature may not be used because people don't know it exists. Sometimes, users even want it but don't find it. Unfortunately, telemetry is often used poorly ignoring this kind of bias. Another example is A/B testing a change measuring adoption, ignoring the existing user base. Or measuring "user engagement" by how long users spend on the app, meaning a change that confuses them and make something that used to be quick take longer is seen as positive. All this seems stupid and obvious, and yet I've seen teams of experienced engineers and PMs fall into this trap and even discard any concern. The metrics had become the objective for them.

UI and elderly users

Posted Aug 3, 2024 9:09 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> All this seems stupid and obvious, and yet I've seen teams of experienced engineers and PMs fall into this trap and even discard any concern. The metrics had become the objective for them.

Which is why, despite officially working at head office, I spend a lot of time "driving a desk" down the yard. I chat to the people at the sharp end.

I think Barclays have just fallen in to this trap, their "new improved" web site is a PITA of more clicks, less information, harder to read, ... etc etc.

And there's no way to give any feedback! I'd have thought a quick survey for logged in users wouldn't be that hard ...

Cheers,
Wol

UI and elderly users

Posted Aug 9, 2024 22:00 UTC (Fri) by dswegen (guest, #4431) [Link] (1 responses)

I think this will do what you're looking for: You need to add a google maps widget to your home screen that will launch it into drive mode (which is a weirdly obscure way of doing it). So, long press on an empty space on your home screen and bring up the list of available widgets. Scroll down to "Maps" and select "Driving Mode" which should add an icon to the home screen. If you now launch gmaps using this icon it should enter driving mode. Just swipe down the field at the bottom of the screen and it should be full screen.

UI and elderly users

Posted Aug 12, 2024 21:56 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

That looks exactly like what I was looking for. So if it's still available as a widget, why on earth did they delete it from Maps itself? Oh well ...

And you can't find it (well I couldn't) by googling for it :-(

Cheers,
Wol