Sometimes you need to reset
I work with older people almost every day, especially in researching technology and services. As such I think I have a pretty good handle on how they interact with technology and the barriers they do (and don’t) face.
But this week I got a great reset, when I introduced an older person to a Nexus Player.
In this case the older person was relatively comfortable using Netflix on their laptop, but wanted to watch it on TV. After an abortive attempt at trying to understand casting from a phone on to the TV, I stepped in and offered to help, as I had a spare Nexus Player sitting unused in my home. It’s fair to say I was pretty confident that this person would easily handle the Nexus Player - after all it has a very simple remote, it’s always on, and this person was already comfortable with Netflix. Whilst not a great smartphone user they had one and used it every day, so I thought I was heading to a slam-dunk and simple support session.
It took me just a few moments to plug in the player and switch to the HDMI channel - and then the problems started.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the Nexus Player has a small remote that only has a few buttons. These are:
Circular pad (left / right / up / down) with central button (OK)
Back button
Play/Pause button
Menu button
Microphone button
In my mind I was relatively certain this would be simple to understand - sure, the microphone might be tricky (especially as this person speaks English as a second language) - but overall there aren’t many ways to go wrong.
Or so I thought.
After a few moments of demonstrating how to select Netflix, start it, and move through content, I realised that the person wasn’t understanding what I was showing. And it took a second person to point out the problem.
As you move through menus in Netflix (and elsewhere on many media platforms) your current context is shown by the panel enlarging slightly, as if it is stepping forward from the pack. Scroll left and right, and you can see this.
Only this person didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t until it was carefully explained to them, that the ‘slightly bigger box’ was the box they were looking at - that they began to understand what I was showing them.
That was a surprise - I was so used to this visual metaphor that it hadn’t crossed my mind someone wouldn’t innately understand it..
Once we had this straightened out and after a little more demonstration, I handed the control to them, explained what the buttons did (briefly) and asked them to select a show.
They scrolled down, instead of right.
“Try going back up”, I suggested. They looked confused, looked at the remote - and continued scrolling down.
To cut a long story short, they weren’t understanding another interaction metaphor - that a circular button can control left, right, up and down movement. To them it was simple a circle, and me trying to explain that it contextually changed behaviour depending on where in the circle you pressed, took some time.
Not only that, but they were using an index finger to press the button, which made precise presses harder. I had to help them switch their hold to use their thumb, and explain ‘resting’ the thumb in the middle, and ‘rolling it’ up down or left and right to move.
I had fully expected this to be a natural and simple model, but watching this person try to get to grips with this was a sobering experience.
I’d love to say the problems ended there, but far from it. I had to try and explain how a bent left arrow meant ‘back’ (with ‘back to where?’ being just as confusing), how play and pause did two things, how a circle was 'home’ - and we kind of gave up trying to explain the microphone.
And the moral of the story is…
Only one person is at fault here, only one of us has egg on the face - and it isn’t the older person. Sure, I’m a geek and I’m used to tech, but I’m also a UX researcher who focusses in the care, health and aged care space.
I thought I had a really good handle on the level of understanding and the expertise I would face. I was, clearly, wrong.
Sometimes we have to reset our expectations and understanding. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told customers that not everyone knows the logo links to the home page, and had a response of “Really? But everyone knows that, surely!”. I just fell into the same trap.
Here endeth the lesson - hopefully we’ll all learn from the mistakes of one grizzled UXer.