10-08-2011, 02:42 PM
Here's another reason to mourn Steve Jobs' early death:
He did not live long enough to discover some of the ways Apple's minimalist approach to design makes it harder for people with aging eyesight to use their products -- tiny lettering, low contrast markers, overuse of icons that increasingly resemble one another, overly subtle identification of sockets, confusing model designations, confusing plugs and adapters, window-resizing corners that demand too much precision placement and movement of the cursor, a general lack of redundant labeling and no ability to turn that on, an iTunes vocabulary alien to those who use it for audio books (tracks, music, albums). He would have noticed others.
In another 15 years, Steve might have led Apple to a redesign that better accommodates the huge number of older users.
Apple makes great products, but they do not seem to have noticed how much those designs were shaped by young people working with large monitors under perfect lighting conditions -- factors that do not apply to most users.
He did not live long enough to discover some of the ways Apple's minimalist approach to design makes it harder for people with aging eyesight to use their products -- tiny lettering, low contrast markers, overuse of icons that increasingly resemble one another, overly subtle identification of sockets, confusing model designations, confusing plugs and adapters, window-resizing corners that demand too much precision placement and movement of the cursor, a general lack of redundant labeling and no ability to turn that on, an iTunes vocabulary alien to those who use it for audio books (tracks, music, albums). He would have noticed others.
In another 15 years, Steve might have led Apple to a redesign that better accommodates the huge number of older users.
Apple makes great products, but they do not seem to have noticed how much those designs were shaped by young people working with large monitors under perfect lighting conditions -- factors that do not apply to most users.