Update to I’ll Just Remote In: Nana gets an iPhone​

In the early days of this blog, I talked about my Nana her computer in my popular post: I’ll Just Remote In. Like many younger family members, I am the go-to tech consultant for family members for whom a phone should be a speaker, receiver, and numbers with nothing else going on with it.

Recently, I’m facing new challenges with Nana and electronic devices when she recently decided that it was time to get an iPhone. I will admit, I would have advised against it but she felt it was time and it will be soon time for her to start taking advantage of Uber, so it’s really for the best, but the challenges she has had with it have revealed some ways in which tech isn’t always accessible to people with different disabilities. In my working with her, I’ve identified some areas where accessibility could be improved,

Hand-Eye Coordination

Using a touch screen has a great deal of hand-eye coordination to it. You have to be able to see something and get your hand to do that thing. For people that struggle in this area, this is a huge problem with modern touch screen devices. Accessibility in this area would be a huge improvement.

Actual Documentation

One of the biggest things that modern electronic devices lack is a user guide. In the past, everything came with a user guide, usually in multiple languages. However, it has become a trend now to leave the guide behind and offer only the most basic instructions or leave the guide to an on-device tutorial. There are millions of people who would appreciate an actual paper book with basic instructions on how to do basic tasks.

Size and Text

Everyone will have eyesight issues at some point and one of the areas in which tech has not innovated as of yet is making devices more accessible to those with eyesight issues. Although we turned the text size up to maximum and made it as bold and contrast as possible, it would be a great improvement to work on how to make devices accessible for everyone over the long-term as people suffer with eye issues as they get older.

Password Help

This ties into the hand-eye coordination problem. Greater help with typing in passwords would also be helpful. Trying to type on the typically far too small keyboard and get a password into the device accurately would be helpful. Even with thumb or facial recognition, there are times on the device where you’ll have to put in your full password and having more help with that or a modification to the keyboard would be very helpful.

Tech will need to adapt to the use of older users and the sooner we start thinking about these problems the easier they will be able to solve. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here attempting to bring Nana into the 21st century.