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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: 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.