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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

I am the family tech support person and I have learned that the things that work best are wired, tactile, and easy interfaces. After COVID hit I set up my father's home office, but recently replaced his bluetooth keyboard with a wired one which eliminates downtime and frustration. My mom likes her iPhone 5S with a real button, and I've enabled accessibility options on her large monitor to show a gigantic mouse pointer. My MIL has trouble using social media and other phone apps, but at least can answer FaceTime calls because the answering interface is so easy to use.

Worth mentioning the 2016 OECD tech skills survey, which found 2/3 of people are not skilled technology users. In the U.S., <6% are level 3 (highest) while 20% can't use computers. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills-matter_978926...

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> at least can answer FaceTime calls because the answering interface is so easy to use.

This! I can't believe how shitty every single other video call apps are! Who invented swipe-to-answe? How did they test that? It's the most anti-intuitive move I've ever experienced and it took me months of frustrations to teach my 80+ old parent when he has an Android tablet... I ended up giving him an iPad just to use FaceTime

I am probably at the opposite end of comfort with technology and still get confused on whether swiping up or swiping down will accept the call - one of the dumbest interfaces. Why, two buttons to accept and reject calls that we used to have everywhere was too complicated?!

Omg 100x yes, the answering UI on modern phones is the pinnacle example of why flat-ui needs to die. It should be the easiest UI to create with only two freaking buttons but still everyone fails so miserably bad. Shape of buttons are identical, colors are very faded and the icons to indicate phone up or down have been flattened so much you can hardly even recognize any of them is a phone. Or even worse are those you need to pick up the button and drag it either left or right to answer, without indication which direction means what until you touch.

Not even Apple gets it right, half of the time the answer button is white and placed on the left side of the screen and half of the time it's green and placed on the right! How fucked up is that??! I thought i was going crazy by constantly imagining the button being on the other side last time i answered but it turned out it actually was!

https://6abc.com/technology/why-your-iphone-can-accept-or-de...

It is nice to get some reminders why I still use a so called 'dumb'-phone.

Very easy to use and with extremely long battery life.

And if I lose it or damage it, the replacement cost is a non-issue. I had a Nokia costing 79 NOK (approx USD 10) for over ten years. Eventually the screen died. Now I am using my daughters old Nokia, which I got free of charge because she swithced to Apple.

And even better, the kids can not demand 'better' or more expensive phones than what I use myself. That is where the big savings are :) :) :)

Considering myself pretty tech-literate, using computers for 3/4 of my lifetime - yet, i've to pause AND think each time i've to answer a Microsoft Teams call which button is going to pick up the call...

Same for me, and in the beginning it happened often enough I am too quick and pressed the wrong one ...

At least make the "answer" button green.

Keep in mind that the OECD survey is administered via computer. The results may be conservative in representing a lack of computer proficiency.

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