Well, I'd start with physical buttons. Forget stuff like face ID. A button that scans your fingerprint is a lot simpler to "get". Same goes for volume keys.

Automatic screen brightness is pretty good, but if it weren't a thing, buttons would work there. That's how laptops do it.

I'd add a feature that makes certain settings reset to "default" after a configurable amount of time (or never). Airplane mode or mute could turn off over night, so grandma can never "disable" her phone and become unreachable, or unable to reach anyone. (Except by turning it off, a concept almost no-one has to be taught)

Give me the ability to disable quick settings in the notifications shade, grandma doesn't need to toggle nfc, wifi, her data connection, or start screen recording (I literally tried to remove all the quick settings, but there's a minimum!). Hell, get rid of the notification shade completely and make it a physical button that just opens your messages from whatsapp, sms and email, all in one list.

I don't think we need to dumb down everything a phone can do. And I think we can assume an elderly person can get help with changing settings or setting it up to begin with. As such, what I wish fir, is for the simple stuff to be even simpler, and for the complicated stuff to be hidden away and essentially have configurable child locks, so they can't be touched, except by someone who knows what the stuff does.

It should be possibly to put a device in a mode where it is "senile-proof". But it isn't. My grandmother can, and has, put her devices in a state where they do not work, simply by turning on airplane mode without realizing. And our current solution is to use Life 360, so we can check that her phone is still "online" and have someone visit her to fix it, if it isn't.

[–] Toes@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

(I literally tried to remove all the quick settings, but there’s a minimum!)

Oh yes, this bothered me deeply the first time I encountered it.

I've been doing tech support for a couple decades and I have had the pleasure of training many people from all walks of life on how to use these things. Some of them never used a smartphone or even wanted it.

In the early days blackberry had an edge with the keyboard and minimal apps. It was very corporate and standardized.

As we moved onto early android phones it did have very helpful features to make it more like a dumb feature phone. Using these was a huge boon with those that didn't care to learn how to use them or really just didn't get it.

As time went on, these features were dropped or made irrelevant by other invasive features (like the busier and busier notification drawer)

What I found curious was many of these helpful features didn't go away entirely but were locked behind a secret corporate mode. This more extreme level of control is typically exposed through MDM software.

I've found over the years that apple devices (these also have a corpo mode) are easier for the elderly to use as the UI has largely stayed the same and the OS treats you like you're dumb. It has better accessibility options and my elderly customers love talking to siri.

I feel like as the knobs and levers generations dies out; the attention manufacturers and designers put towards this demographic dwindle drastically.

I remember the old GameBoy with the contrast knob on the side was super useful, and something like that may be useful. But there is also the argument if you've reached this point in life today, you're probably not going to use it unless forced to. And teaching people who feel forced into something is unproductive and often makes them more afraid of technology. Some would say leave them to the wolves by this point. (not how I feel)

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Physical buttons for brightness is a bad idea. People will just press them by accident and then complain that the screen changes brightness all the time. Laptops get away with it because they already have a bajillion buttons, and anyway in most cases the screen brightness buttons are actually multifunctional anyway so it doesn't add to the button count.