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from the You-May-Be-Younger,-But-I-Have-Better-Insurance dept.
(Disclaimer: I wrote the article Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users but suspect that many Soylentils will find it useful.)
A significant part of the Internet-using population is aged 50 or older — including the people who invented it. Web designers need to understand what older users need and why it's not enough to just say, "I can read it, so what's the problem?"
If you're my age you have no doubt run into more than a few web sites that are just plain useless, either because you can't read the text, or because they were designed using assumptions that those of us over forty years of age don't find useful. Whether it's our need for high contrast text, or our preference for actual words and paragraphs over video, the needs of older users often get ignored.
We are the generation that invented and grew up with personal computers. It's absurd to suggest that we are less capable of using technology. In other words, you can't complain about old people not understanding tech, and then also complain that they've taken over Facebook and Twitter. Besides, we also usually have lots more disposable income, so catering to our needs is good for business.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:29AM (13 children)
Well, with your arrogant-fuck attitude, we believe that you should resign your fate to the hole you dug yourselves: The younger in your family hate you too much to take care of you, so you will end up in a home run by Blacks and Mexicans who hate you even more than your kids do. The price you pay for not having family take care of and respect you is you being put into homes where the very Blacks and Mexicans you outsourced your kids' lives to will beat you daily in your own hell. And if you old fucks are wondering why your young are putting you into a home instead of taking care of you, it's because you were an asshole and nobody likes you.
Perhaps in the next life there would be some understanding, but not just yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:03AM (9 children)
I've been reading your amateurish trolling for quite a while, eth.
And it occurred to me that your writing style is strikingly similar to that of the author of this piece:
https://tweaker.org/true-stories/true-stories/why-we-do-what-we-do/ [tweaker.org]
Is that you?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:12AM (1 child)
That will no longer be my problem, though, I suspect you won't like it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:14AM
Are you going to try and up your game? Go for it!
As I've said a few times before, you're a fucking asshole, but you're *our* fucking asshole.
Please continue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:19AM (4 children)
That's not our EF. The author of that article seems to be burdened with some concern for drug users who get AIDS from swapping needles. EF is NOT burdened with concern for his fellow man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:24AM
A fair point.
You seem lucid today, i guess you got your booty bump? Good show.
By the way, I do like that song. Not a favorite, but a good one. Thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:38AM (2 children)
Oh please! Don't be stupid. He shows a hell of a lot more concern than you do! We've seen your crazy shit! Conversely he's a man of wealth and grace! Lay your hands on the screen, and he will HEAL YOU! Do you feel it? All your sorrows will succumb to the power of ethanol!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:42AM
TASTE! wealth and taste! you dumbass!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:54AM
Why don't we parse your post? WTF do you mean by "concern"? Or, "stupid"? Or, "crazy"?
I'll get back to you on that "all your sorrows" bullshit. I've led such a righteous life, I don't have a lot of sorrows. But, I'll look around, see if I can't locate a few.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:15AM (1 child)
That's pretty atypical trolling for him, really. He's usually either better at it or more over the top.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:37AM
Usually more the latter than the former, IMHO.
That said, even if he isn't the author of the linked piece, he likely is a meth snorting faggot.
Just sayin'.
(Score: 1) by charon on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:15AM
Jews get old too, you racist scum!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:39PM
Got tired of shit-posting as anon huh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:45AM (3 children)
They would show the person (it was always a dude though) going through the moves but it was like 100 pictures instead of a video. It was awesome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:54AM (2 children)
I've seen those before. I have a yoga book on my shelf that's similar.
That approach actually makes sense there. It's the most information-dense and precise way of communicating that information. It's the kind of thing that would also be effectively communicated by video. Compare and contrast videos that amount to a voice-over of something that could have been written down, if only the presenter and their audience weren't illiterate morons who type at a blazing 5 wpm on a good day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:06AM
"When I was your age, television was called books..." [getyarn.io]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:21AM
Except - after subtracting the misspelled words, the average is closer to .5 wpm.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:47AM (2 children)
I think low contrast text, video, "emojis"^W pictograms is more an effect of the masses of functionally illiterate morons that use the internet these days.
I can think of plenty of older people who need video, not because they can't read the text, but because their reading comprehension is shit. It was shit when they were younger, and it's still shit now that they're getting on in years.
But please continue your crusade to save written language from the video apocalypse! :-)
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:57AM (1 child)
Of course our generation had it's illiterates. But, we didn't put them in positions where they made meaningful decisions, like, designing a publicly facing website. Such people are meant to dig ditches for a living, or sponge off of society by way of welfare.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday November 24 2019, @11:48AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Funny) by captain normal on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:57AM
Now, all you millennial script kiddies, get off my lawn!
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:00AM (4 children)
Backgrounds that interfere with text readability are *so* annoying. Usually I just don't bother.
Once in a while I'll copy the text into an emacs window and read it there.
For a lot of other stuff, ctrl-+ is my friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:21AM (2 children)
There are so many sites that violate the ADA people could probably make a living just suing them (while also creating the social good of forcing websites not to discriminate against older people and the disabled). They won't change until it costs more in penalties than it costs to comply with the law. Fines nowadays are considered a cost of doing business, and getting away with bad behaviour is seen by many as proof of machismo.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:26AM (1 child)
Which is why I primarily use my mobile device as a *phone*. Shocking, I know.
I will occasionally use it for web browsing, but only when I can't get to a device with a keyboard/mouse.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 24 2019, @04:54AM
yep -- I use my phone for browser stuff as an absolute last resort only when immediately necessary -- often times I'll think "oh I should look into X" and when I get home or back to my office, I'll fire up a browser and do the search.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:52AM
What you do is why I think older tech folks have an advantage over the young'uns. They don't know how to adjust for such road bumps, but we've always had to as we built the stuff from scratch. When I encounter issues like you mentioned, if uMatrix doesn't nuke it automatically then I open firebug and nuke it there. I recall a few years ago running into an annoyance with spiegel.de where they blurred everything out behind a paywall. I started to write a plugin to get rid of it, discovered somebody else had already done that, popped theirs in and it was off to the races.
For all other cases, there's always Lynx. I love Lynx. It's a balm whenever my annoyance with designers is piqued.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dwilson on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:12AM (20 children)
I'm not even over forty, and this is easily one of my top-five biggest pet peeves with the modern internet. Whatever I'm searching for, whatever I'm trying to accomplish, whatever instructions I'm looking for... I don't need a fscking youtube video! A few words from the wise, maybe (-maybe!-) a picture, and I'm usually off and running in the right direction. It's gotten so bad, I'm looking for ways to locally remove search results that point at youtube.
- D
(Score: 4, Informative) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:24AM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:46AM
I second that. I've been using it exclusively for most of the year and have found it to return better results than Google, for the reasons you gave.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:24AM (1 child)
Sometimes it helps to do:
foo -youtube
I never tried it, but it might even work with the "site:" option
foo site:-youtube.com
but google searches are getting extremely sloppy. Even quotations hardly exclude anything now.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:27AM
foo site:-youtube.com
Nope doesn't work... oh well, the first one does, sometimes
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:32AM (9 children)
While I agree with you at least 90%, those Youtube videos do have their place. I've watched a few videos on welding, and my welding has improved to a better grade of shit. (I'm never going to be a good welder, but sometimes, I have to stick something together.) Some auto repairs are a bit confusing, and the video can show you clearly where the component is located, and how it is situated.
The kid was working on his starter, and asked me something about the wires in the windings. I wasn't real sure, so he pulled up a video on starter repairs. There was the answer - stick your multimeter probes here and there, get the reading, then stick the probes there and there, get the reading. I could have figured this out on my own, but the video saved several seconds, or maybe a couple minutes, probing around.
Alas, Youtube doesn't have much on Predator Drone Repair and Maintenance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:17AM (6 children)
Speaking of Youtube, this video [youtube.com] and others [youtube.com] describe how VR can be helpful for older olds.
For you younger olds, the American Association of Retired Persons is doing a Black Friday [aarp.org] special, 5 year membership for $50 instead of $60. If nothing else, I bet people who read the forums -- or maybe even articles -- could benefit from our, er, charitable and nuanced perspectives.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:50AM (2 children)
Interesting. For multiple reasons, it's interesting. To quote the chef, near the end of the video, "I can go wherever I want". That's cool, but, just before that, the neurologist (Indian name? No, I won't even attempt to spell her name) explained that people need to interact with those places. Need to smell, need to feel . . .
In the side bar, Youtube is suggesting I see the video "Visiting the coldest town in the world". If you've never experienced temperatures of fifty degrees below zero, how do you relate to a video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1noUh2NrLI [youtube.com] I could list dozens of examples, including blistering heat, but there is no evidence of sweat on your body because it evaporates so quickly. The smell or the sound of the coast, in various weather conditions. The best that a video can offer is purely visual, and academic, IMO.
I guess that gets added to the list of "things worth thinking about".
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 24 2019, @04:32AM (1 child)
I think it was one of Stanislaw Lem's stories where he made the point, "A robot can tell you the temperature to any number of decimal places. But only a human can tell you that it's cold."
(Score: 1) by Samantha Wright on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:02PM
I think you'll find that robots have found an immense amount of success by aggregating humans' opinions of whether or not it's cold, and using that data to report a comparable judgement. You may want to let go of that particular chestnut.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:00PM (2 children)
AARP? No thanks. I'd rather have my tonsils extracted through my ears than give those insurance company shills a nickel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:41PM (1 child)
How fortunate! I am a part time surgeon, and this week, I am running a special on customized tonsil extractions! For the low-low price of $99.95, you can have your tonsils extracted through your ear canal! And, for only $89.99 more, we can capture the procedure on video, for you to share with friends and family! Act now, call me at 1-800-sucker for this special deal!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:05PM
I already have a video of my latest colonoscopy to give as gifts to friends and family.
Thanks muchly for the offer. Maybe next year.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Sunday November 24 2019, @02:02AM
I have to agree. Sometimes watching a video really is the best way to learn how to do something, like taking apart something that's complicated - such as modern electronics that are not meant to be taken apart. It can be really handy to see exactly where and how to jam the putty knife into the thing to get it apart without breaking it.
Other times it's just infuriating. I don't need or want to watch a video on how to install a plugin for Eclipse or to set up a Raspberry Pi to serve up some files. I have no desire to sit through 10 minutes of someone rambling while watching them type in a terminal window. I'd rather just have an article or some instructions I can scan through and say "Oh, that's the piece I'm missing!"
Luckily some videos have the transcription option, which can often tell me quickly if the video is going to be informative any possibly worth sitting through, or if it's going to just waste my time.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 24 2019, @05:11AM
I think we've all probably gone to youtube to learn how to do something (for me, plumbing -- I've saved many thousands of dollars) and it obviously has its place, but it seems the modern information aesthetic is to glom everything together. I quit using Gmail years ago because it was so hard to use because of that glomming. In recent versions of OSX, when you open finder it doesn't default to your user folder anymore, but rather to some massive list of everything on your machine -- it just adds a step I have move around to do what I know what I want to do. I don't treat my files like I'm going window shopping -- I want a specific thing and the quickest way to get there. When I'm on a hard search for something I misplaced, for all of the computing resources apple wastes on spotlight etc, the fastest way to get there for me usually, is to open terminal and type find ~ | grep -i somethingOrOther.
Doing a web search would be so much better if the results were less of a random blob and much more segregated: text, audio, pictures, video, news (DDG actually does a relatively good job of this as mentioned above). I think it is rare to not know whether you want an article or a video, so throwing up videos when you are looking to order a part is waste, just like throwing up parts lists when you want to see an example before you wade into fixing your borkenDoDad.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:25AM (3 children)
I'm convinced that a fair portion of people making youtube videos don't watch them before they upload. Too many consist of 5 minutes of rambling, 5 minutes of showing the back of the person's head while they demonstrate what you wanted to see (alternatively, they make sure you can actually see what they're pointing out but the camera person has cerebral palsy or a seizure disorder) or if it's a step by step sort of thing, they keep backing up and presenting the steps in near random order, and finally 5 minutes of shout outs. But at least it's in 1024K video so it buffers a lot.
That's not to say there aren't very helpful videos out there, but it's hard to tell until you click on it.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 24 2019, @05:17AM
Gosh that was hard. I couldn't decide on funny or insightful -- the line about buffering cracked me up. I went for insightful because it comes with karama, but what I really want -- have always wanted -- is the "insightfunny" mod.
(Score: 1) by Samantha Wright on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:08PM (1 child)
Video tutorials aren't the product of a UX-driven decision. The explanation is actually embedded in your post: 5 minutes + 5 minutes = 10 minutes, a critical threshold that determines how many advertisements YouTube is willing to show during your video. If a given YouTube channel's creator makes a living from their channel, then it's a very safe bet that few if any videos they upload will be much shorter than this sacred number. It's unfortunate that the submitter didn't research this before composing his diatribe, particularly since it's ridden with interstitial advertisements as well [smashingmagazine.com].
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 27 2019, @03:02AM
The decision to present the information in the form of a video rather than text and diagrams or still pictures is very much a UX decision. Indeed, there are external factors that help drive that decision, but that doesn't change the fundamental fact.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday November 25 2019, @04:00PM
In my experience, youtube isn't the problem. I only see their videos if I click on the link or click play on an embedded video.
What annoys me the most is news sites that auto play their videos and if I scroll down to the text; they insist on popping up the video in a hover box. Get the F$#% over yourself! I generally leave immediately. : /
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 25 2019, @05:11PM
I use youtube videos on disassembling laptops etc before I try to disassemble the same stuff...
The problem is youtube search is crap.
The other problem is google default search is crap. And duckduckgo is also crap and they still haven't added a ! shortcut to google verbatim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:14AM
Reading this in black, white and grey. It's really nice. Stylish or similar plugins also work, but it's nice to be able to change it on the site. Well done.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:41AM (1 child)
I always control-mouseroll and change the font size when I run into these pages. Doesn't do anything for TIAA-CREF's site, which I still have to scroll down because all of it is large-font notices at the top and a crapload of whitespace. How about, I dunno, multiple items on one line and serifs? Or greasemonkey scripts/tuned-CSS repository and 'Grumpy-olds' browser plugin (?) to drop those in automatically for common websites?
I see a few classes of people here:
I see the tech-savvy olds possibly being the best, last, and only line of defense in this area. I mean, can you point to anyone else who's going to take up these causes?
What all of us have run into, though, is 2560/4k laptops and monitors where you're saying, "That's text, right? I think that's text. Or maybe it's a scratch on the screen. Where's the mouse pointer?" when Linux brings up the X server at the default resolution. For those of us who don't live our lives on our phones, this is probably more important to us, as websites will probably auto-adjust eventually.
(Score: 1) by Samantha Wright on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:44PM
The example you mentioned (TIAA [tiaa.org]) is a lot better than you think, and seems to have some deliberate ADA compliance embedded in it. Under Firefox, hit View > Page Style > No Style; a very thoughtful "skip to main content" link will take you past the somewhat-broken oversized SVG elements in the navigation and to what I suspect is a format you'd find quite bearable. Ironically, this works much poorly on TFA, as there are giant embedded SVG elements within the post's body itself.
But instead of worrying about specific examples, I'd like you to consider looking at this problem from a different angle, which is one of deliberate (albeit usually semi-unconscious) discrimination against older users—or more specifically, the generation that is currently ageing. In English-speaking countries, anyone who hadn't graduated high school at the turn of the millennium was reaching maturity in a time and place where many public and authority figures were making unforgivably self-serving, avaricious, and cynical decisions about how to govern, and the younger generation witnessed profound apathy or even enthusiasm for the lies, lobbying, and excuses that were made to justify these actions, many of which sabotaged the hard-earned lessons and accomplishments of previous generations—and a lot of that continues to this day. The resulting perception isn't that elders in general should be disrespected, but almost the opposite: that the Baby Boom generation disrespected their environment and their ancestors, and that their legacy is one that needs to be tip-toed around, if not outright undone.
So, when creating a website, who do the designers keep in mind as stakeholders? Well, it's not going to be the group of people responsible for every single incident of corruption that's occurred during their lifetimes, that's for sure. If anything that's a group of people to proactively exclude, a sentiment captured by the phrase "OK, boomer [wikipedia.org]," and reinforced every time it's invoked by kids who only log into Facebook because they have to; kids who would much rather be elsewhere, with people they can relate to. So as far as meeting accessibility standards goes, you can expect to see a slight bias in attention paid to accessibility features that don't benefit the elderly, such as addressing reduced mobility, options to accommodate colour-blindness and colour-deficient vision, and braille interfaces.
Otherwise, it's best to expect UI-based discrimination to be deliberately employed as a filter, and I wouldn't expect an outpouring of sympathy from the digital natives any time soon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday November 23 2019, @09:57AM (3 children)
But worse than useless are the ones that have text but can't be read because they rely on scripts I don't trust.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:47AM (2 children)
That's the problem with you old folks: lack of trust. It's a sign of early-onset dementia.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:32PM (1 child)
Contrary to popular belief, those who fall most often victim to internet and phone scams are the 24 and younger crowd, not the older people.
I don't see lack of trust as a problem. It's not a sign a dementia, it's a sign of wisdom.
(Score: 1) by Samantha Wright on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:56PM
Here's a source for that [experian.com]. A few caveats you might want to consider: successful scams of victims aged 65+ are so much more profitable than those of victims aged 18-24 that despite being about half as frequently reported, more money is made from them overall (assuming a population of 100 people, that'd be $5016 vs $4500), and that the most common type of scam reported by elderly victims is tech support related. Based on this sample of reported scams, I suspect there are actually far more scams of the elderly that go unreported, as tech support scamming is usually a form of ransoming (where you really do get use of your computer back at the end), whereas other scams tend to end with the victim left empty-handed and denied some good or service.
So: you might not actually be right.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:43AM (9 children)
"Hard to read?" Hard to read?!
Look, pal, in my day we had to read text against strobing backgrounds while 8-bit sound effects screeched out of the speakers.
You don't know hard to read.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:41PM (4 children)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:43PM (1 child)
Why are you lashing out like a toddler today? Is the GOP's downfall for their crimes just making you lose your shit?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:52AM
Sounds like I'm not the one that needs their diaper changed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 24 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)
I am not older than dirt. there are others more venerable than I am. but my first computer was a TRS-80s that used a cassette deck. my grandmother bought the first IBM PC and taught herself to program before she taught us. my grandfather brought home a special treat for us kids one day: the first console system with the first game, pong. a couple years later we did the first computer chat with an aspie we went to school with via a modem.
By the time we got to college we were using elm, vi, and usenet. there was no web yet, and MUDs were all the rage. I know what it is to fall asleep and dream of tetris all night long.
So I have grown up alongside all this, and built chunks of it myself. I know eyebleed from bad graphics. as usual, whippersnappers don't know how pampered they are.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 24 2019, @04:09AM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:47PM (1 child)
It has just struck me: There are probably legal adults who don't remember MySpace and GeoCities. I only THOUGHT that GeoShitty was bad, then along came MySpace.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 24 2019, @03:07AM
Geocities? myspace? no, my friend, I was thinking back to the days of mosaic. that was hard to read.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 24 2019, @05:20AM (1 child)
Wow -- you had sound!!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 24 2019, @05:21AM
And more than two colors (where one was black)?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:54AM (1 child)
They often post interesting articles twice as a service to old folks with memory problems.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:12PM
They also often post interesting articles twice as a service to old folks with memory problems.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:06PM (5 children)
Quality of everything has fallen.
It will continue to fall, too.
This is what happens when an industry grows and its labor pool does too. You get more less-qualified people contributing because at large numbers, you can't be anything better than "average."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:50PM (3 children)
> Quality of everything has fallen.
Corollary from a wise friend, "Anything good goes out of the market."
Think about it...as soon as there is something good, it is undercut by a cheap copy, which eventually puts the original out of business (people that don't care about quality make buying decisions on price). Thus, if you see something nice, buy it now, perhaps even stock up if it is the sort of thing that wears out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @09:40PM (1 child)
Truth. Oftentimes it's the same company that made the original "good" product that cheapens it a little more every year as they profit-optimize it and coast on their good name.
If something is quality at a reasonable price, rest assured, the long term business plan is NOT to let that last. It's a way to gain new customers, but once gained, the customer base will be milked.
Example: Honda Motors
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday November 24 2019, @02:36AM
This. It's why consumers buy on price and not quality. Price is the only metric that is reliably true.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:26PM
A student once asked me. "Don't you have more than one shirt?"
I replied, "I have lots of shirts. But when I see something I like, I buy lots of it, because who knows when it will be available again?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @05:11PM
A recession will come along eventually. Enterprises will fail. The lower quality labor will be culled, and sent to the unemployment line.
When it does, perhaps this time around we can at least appreciate the jump in quality, rather than merely lamenting the higher unemployment.
Remember, we ASKED for what we're getting right now. Everyone's got jobs, and thus, most jobs are being done poorly.
The cyclical inverse correlation between employment levels and work quality will continue, at least until we get automated systems that are capable of improving themselves.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @12:14AM (5 children)
I find that Chrome's ability to zoom in on pages is really helpful for those of us with deteriorating eyesight. Unfortunately, both SoylentNews and Slashdot are coded in a way that screws that up. The page notes that we are zooming, and then "helpfully" shrinks all the columns to counteract that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @03:11AM (3 children)
Responsive zoom isn't magnify. It is designed to keep the relative page flow while proportionally increasing the size of the content. If you want a magnification, then you need to set the browser to not change your viewport size on zooming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:36PM (2 children)
I just looked at the Chrome settings, and could find anything like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:40PM (1 child)
"I just looked at the Chrome settings, and could find anything like that."
I just looked at the Chrome settings, and could NOT find anything like that. My vision is bad and my proofreading also sucks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @09:40PM
Just put out a feeler to a friend of mine, apparently there has been a couple bugs sitting open for 10 years about that on the bug tracker. Apparently, their position is that people can use the built-in OS tools to accomplish magnification or hack around it by passing a bunch of command-line options or custom CSS (or switching browsers). So maybe give those a look.
(Score: 2) by TrentDavey on Sunday November 24 2019, @11:40PM
I want an "unzoom". Half the damned pages that come up are optimized for a phone when I'm always using a laptop: huge Gd'ed text, huge Gd'ed images.. uugh.
Get off my lawn but shovel the snow in the driveway first.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @11:05AM
The NUMBER ONE reason I loath doing the weekly "security" update on my stuff is because I don't want to have to re-learn how to use the thing after they've randomly and mysteriously changed the user interface, or hidden, or "gesturized" some functionality I need. Especially if it's something I use infrequently, but when I need it, damn it I need it.
This was how Microsoft lost my business forever. I was a pro with Windows 7. But Windows 10 is nothing but frustration. I can't find anything.
Now Apple is doing it too. Consequently, my main work computer is an old (2009) Mac Pro running snow leopard. It runs the versions of the software that I already know how to use. New macs with the new OSX refuse to run the cleaner versions of the software I need, before they got all fancy-pantsed interfaces that only get in the way and don't add anything useful. Nope.
Web sites that have too many gee-gaws on the page so I have to spend more time trying to navigate than actually consuming content is a very fast way to get me to move-on to somewhere else. Clean, clear, concise. That's the way to design something USEFUL. And as for content -- stop trying to convince me how good your thing is and just show me the thing.
Try using healthcare.gov, for instance. Comparison shopping for insurance is like asking a clown for directions.
"How do I get to city hall?"
"Did you know four hundred people go there every month? It's very easy to get to."
"That's great. How do I get there?"
"Most people use a car. You can also walk, or ride a bike."
"Ok, but which direction will get me there?"
"The Earth is a sphere. Pretty much any direction will get you there eventually."
"Fastest path please?"
"That depends on traffic. You should probably take the highways. Unless its rush hour. Then do something else."
"Now we're getting somewhere. Ok. Which highway?"
"You'll need a drivers license. And a car."
"I have those."
"Gas?"
"Yes."
"Most people use gas, but some people use electric vehicles which may not go as fast, especially if they are older ones like golf carts. You can also bike, or walk, which is very healthy and good for the environment. Have you considered all the alternatives?"
I swear I've had conversations exactly like this, and some web sites seem to be written by these same people. That's when I realize I'll live longer without their so-called "help."
Along with STEM, let's make reading, writing, comprehension and EFFECTIVE communication part of the core curriculum again? Kay? lol! That be lit irl bro. ight, brb.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 24 2019, @10:21PM
My website, which I only aoccasionally do anything with, is mostly headings, links, ans plaintext.
Easy for a reader to adjust character size and window width as it please her.
Is this the way the web was originally intended to work?
-- hendrik