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Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it moreso that old people are daft and impatient? I am nearly 30 and can figure out systems, both new and old, and find that patience and faith is vitally important. I notice my parents don't even bother to explore the menus or dropdowns or well..much of anything, before they demand to be helped. It's gonna be very hard to sell me on menus being ageist. I hope you can read my frustration..

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> old people are daft and impatient

Please don't post nasty generalizations about large groups of people to HN. It isn't kind, and it is flamebait. What we want on HN is exactly the opposite. Would you please review the site guidelines and take them to heart? We've had to warn you many times, and the last time we unbanned you you promised not to do this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19885436.

I didn’t down vote you, but you really misunderstand old people. As I mentioned in another comment, my 97 year old Dad (almost 98!) uses computers and he has taught himself 3D animation, has started to write scripts, makes little movies blending real video and video with CGI added, and helps make biography documentaries for his friends’ families. He also goes out three or four nights a week to dinner, plays, movies, the local MIT club entrepreneur talks, etc., etc. Most of my Dad’s friends are similar: physically frail, but still have curiosity and zest for life.

Also, there should be no stigma for growing old. We all grow old and eventually die. Very natural thing. What we can do is to enjoy every day and be kind and loving to other people, looking more for what you can do for them than what you can get out of them.

Very awesome story. But doesn't this prove the GP's point then? Not all old people are incapable of figuring things out --by your anecdote-- and the GP's point is that the ones that are, have just lost their patience and perseverance for that stuff, not that they actually are incapable of finding a menu item because they're old now. And things requiring a bit of patience isn't discrimination, it's just that some things require patience. There are young people that act like this too, where they refuse to even look through menus for a bit or try different buttons, and we don't say computers are discriminatory against young people?

Granted we should most definitely still have accessibility features. Not having captions or bigger font options is pretty discriminatory.

Well, there are things that require patience and perseverance because they're complex. And they're things that require patience and perseverance because they're designed poorly. It seems to me perfectly rational to come to the realization with age that life really is too short to put up with poorly-designed devices and services. There are perhaps not enough devices and services that are well-designed but they're out there.

As a coder, service architect and security person for many years, I don’t mind when things get very complex.

I’m also a guitar player. When I play music, I want an amplifier with a few simple hardware knobs and not a digital gadget with a zillion nested menu options.

Basic functionality should be up front and clear, so people can get on with the thing they’re focusing on without getting hopelessly distracted. It is here that many digital interfaces fail, and not just for old people only.

If you’re ‘nearly 30’ then it’s likely you grow up with modern gadgets, and since you are on HN there is a higher chance that you have a stronger than average interest in electronics. Your parents did not grow up like you. They grew up in a time when a few knobs is all you need to operate a home appliance. And they are probably more interested in what’s being played on TV, rather than the TV itself.

The complexity of today’s electronics and softwares is getting out of control. If you have to actively explore all menus in order to use something normally, then I suspect the UI is poorly designed. But there is no incentive for their designers to improve, unless they acknowledge that their perception of electronics is very different from the average users.

> The complexity of today’s electronics and softwares is getting out of control.

I saw this illustrated in motorcycle dashboards a few weeks ago. I have a nice analogue speedometer and tachometer, with a small digital display showing a couple of useful things like trip distance counter. Reset the trip counter by holding down one button on the dash.

My father just got the new model of essentially the same motorcycle, with an all-digital dash. Resetting the trip counter requires digging into a menu three to four levels deep, and as you say, it took us a while to explore and find the option, with some disbelief at the apparent step backward in usability.

This is just you being unable to understand what was said, because you have no context to understand. I'm a middle-aged tech nerd and I tell you, it's not what you think it is. This should surprise you and make you curious, not to make you refuse to accept the possibility that you are wrong.

BTW. More and more studies show that young generations are not magically learning to use IT because they have grown up with it. Digital illiteracy grows even among the young. They learn to use the minimum functionality in apps they use daily, but they have relatively little edge over old people when they are put in front of spreadsheet program, or anything specialized. You can see the apparent impatience and signs of learned helplessness in them too.

> old people are daft and impatient

I hope you learn a little more empathy before your parents really need your help. I know old people with vastly more sense and patience than you're displaying, but who nevertheless struggle with many of the issues discussed.

I'm 33 and probably thought similar to the original thought at some point in my life. I've only grown sympathetic after seeing the transformation of my dad as he gets older. Without having to make sense of how a profoundly patient and caring man could slowly morph into a slightly short tempered form of himself, I would have never tried to rectify it.

I think the original comment actually unintentionally hit the core of it. The younger poster exalted imdomitability. A lot of people grow up enjoying and expect themselves to be technically, personally, and professionally indomitible. Any regression on those fronts is understandably infuriating.

I rest my case. You should be asking yourself why, do you see you don't understand their behaviour? Why do they behave differently in menus to you, don't condemn them because they do behave differently to you.

At the same time, and without condemnation, older people CAN learn to be more playful/exploratory and patient with tech. Yes, tech can and should be designed better. But if there were one or two tips that could be disseminated, to old and young (most youth are not tech savvy, actually): 1. If you can't seem to figure it out, you aren't alone (probably poor design) 2. Willingness to calmly "play around" and explore menus/options/buttons is THE KEY to getting almost anything to work

Most young people are also daft and impatient. There was one golden generation, say born in the 70s and 80s, who grew up with tech that encouraged tinkering and learning. Anyone older or younger than this didn’t get the opportunity.

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