st

rentzsch: My Mother Tries an iPhone

maniacalrage:

Some excellent usability/user experience issues listed here, along with solid suggestions for future changes. One of my favorite bits, which I’ve thought about several times:

She mentioned the Clock is wrong. She thought it odd since the other, textual clocks were correct (the first on the Slide to Unlock screen and the uppermost status bar clock). The Calendar app’s date is correct, so she has no reason to believe that the Clock’s icon just happens to be static. I never noticed this inconsistency myself. […] In the same vein, she noted the Weather app must be showing the inside temperature (72°) since it’s currently in the mid-30°s outside when she was looking at it.

Also:

I told her to press the Mail icon. Again she got snagged by her deliberate movements, and accidentally triggered wiggle (icon rearrangement) mode. Apps wouldn’t launch and she didn’t know how to fix it. Suggestion: wiggle mode is such a bad idea. Better to have a dedicated app to arrange Springboard pages/groups.

From personal experience watching my family members (and wife) use iOS, I’d also recommend Apple add a “keep App Store apps updated automatically” setting. When I look at my sister’s phone and see a badge with 155 on Settings.app, I have to imagine she’s probably running into issues because she has (sometimes grossly) outdated versions but she just assumes there’s something wrong with the app itself.